


Didn't Know I Was Lost

by eustaciavye



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Awesome Natasha Romanov, Discussion of Abortion, Domestic Avengers, Existential Angst, F/M, Family Secrets, Internalized racism, Loki Angst, Magic and Science, Magical Artifacts, Natasha Feels, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-28
Updated: 2015-02-12
Packaged: 2018-03-04 01:25:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 47,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2904194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eustaciavye/pseuds/eustaciavye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha and Loki had a <i>thing,</i> no emotions or strings attached. Until they accidentally created one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Accidents

Wake me up when it's all over  
When I'm wiser and I'm older  
All this time I was finding myself  
And I didn't know I was lost  
\-- Avicii featuring Aloe Blacc, "Wake Me Up"

After a magical attack in Uppsala, Director Fury had to admit that SHIELD was out of their league regarding this kind of threat. While they could consult with Dr. Strange, he also spoke about mystical forces, demons, and alternate dimensions posing a threat to mankind. He was the only magician willing to work with SHIELD and be identified, and he could not be compelled to out his fellow practitioners by any means. Thor brought up magic to Frigga at Fury's request, hoping she would decide to visit Midgard.

Instead, she sent Loki, wearing enchanted wrist cuffs and collar. Intricate runes and designs had been worked into the golden alloy. It curtailed the kinds and intent of magic Loki could cast, a fact that irked him to no end. He glowered at Thor, Fury, and Maria Hill, only answering questions as brusquely as possible. He didn't want to be there at their mercy, after all, and found that slowly going insane due to isolation would be preferable to servitude.

It was even worse when he found he was to work with the Avengers. Clint Barton glared at him when not appearing physically ill. Tony Stark was an arrogant ass, making unseemly remarks at Loki's expense. Bruce Banner eyed him warily and kept his distance. Thor clearly could no longer trust him, though it was obvious he wished that he could. And the beautiful Black Widow was indifferent at best, disdainful at worst. "Step out of line, and I'll kill you."

Loki sneered at her. "You may _try."_

"And I will." There was no expression on her face at all, which Loki found eerie. Even her manufactured emotion would be better than that.

The first mission with the Avengers was a dismal failure in his eyes. But no one died, and it was clear that Loki had been able to contain the caster. The problem had been the dozen golems conjured first. The rest of the team was fairly banged up, particularly Natasha, whose melee fighting style meant that while she could destroy a golem, it also meant more physical damage for her. SHIELD medics felt her wounds and broken wrist would take weeks to heal properly, which clearly irritated her.

Grudgingly impressed by her bravery and skill, Loki offered to accelerate her healing and restore her body. Natasha had glared at him, clearly believing he would harm her despite the cuffs. Insulted, Loki glowered and turned on his heel to leave rather than play any games to convince her of his sincerity.

But that must have done it, because she called out "Wait" once he was at the door. It sounded dragged out of her, as if she was as unwilling to ask for help as he was to give it. "I'd appreciate it if you could do the healing spell." That sounded more gracious, at least.

She doubled over in pain as the spell took root, which distressed everyone, even Loki. Seeing her body contort and writhe bothered him more than he wanted to admit. Her comrades took umbrage with his work, despite his assurances of well meaning intent. The cuffs would have nullified any malicious spell, invalidating its effects. "She may have been damaged more than we guessed," Loki offered. "It's a _healing_ spell."

Still, no good deed went unpunished, did it?

And indeed, Natasha came to his suite the next day and ordered JARVIS to seal the doors and halt any potential records. He watched as she approached, almost dreading it. What unsavory thing would she say now?

"To what do I owe this honor?"

"Well, that's the thing, isn't it?" she asked in return. "That healing spell was outside the scope of the contract. You didn't have to heal me yesterday."

"No, I did not," he agreed.

"So why did you?"

He had been impressed by her. A manipulator, warrior, and information specialist all at once, she had won his admiration and respect. Seeds of that had been sown on the helicarrier and the Battle of New York. Well, that and frustrated anger. Now that they were nominally allies, he could openly appreciate and admire her skill.

"It's not important."

"I owe you a debt."

Loki stopped short with those words. "What?"

"You helped when you didn't have to."

"You and your friends don't do such accounting between yourselves."

"You're not a friend."

That hurt more than it should, and he couldn't quite keep his expression neutral. "Of course not," he huffed.

"Did you want to be?" she asked, voice neutral.

"You're mortal."

"That doesn't answer my question."

Loki didn't want to answer it. He admired a _mortal_ for deceiving him, for fighting in a similarly deceiving style, for being too similar to him for his liking.

Her gaze turned assessing. "You do, don't you? No one on Asgard coming to your defense after what you've done, no one here but us talking to you..." Natasha crowded into his space, and Loki was tempted to step back to avoid her. But if he did that, he'd look weak. So he stayed in place and felt every curve of her body pressed to his. He had called her a balm before, and oh yes, her touch was quite the balm indeed.

"If you're through," Loki began as haughtily as he could, looking away from her knowing gaze. "I've studies to complete."

Natasha had a hand on his chest, and now used the other to swiftly pull him down for a kiss. He froze, startled, and then responded with such intense fervor that it frightened him. Once he realized what he was doing, he pushed her away. Baring his teeth in anger at her, Loki snarled. "A fine thing, to make sport as thanks for healing."

"It wasn't sport," she replied.

"Oh no?" he spat at her bitterly. "I'm the mass murderer. I'm the psycho torturer. I'm the monster in the glass cage, the one to inspire nightmares. I'm not a friend, only a foe. Only ever a foe."

"Because you choose to be."

 _"I am a god!_ And I was King, now reduced to vile servitude and the butt of your jokes. I won't stand for that!"

"So kneel."

Before he could ask what she meant or sneer at her to appear in control, she pulled him to the floor with her. Crashing to his knees hurt. Everything hurt. He wanted to crawl into a hole and disappear, ignore the hollow ache he felt. Everything had stopped making sense so long ago, yet he kept going. He couldn't stop, couldn't succumb to appearing weak or defenseless. Even if he had no plan, he had to appear in control.

She kissed him again, a hand tangling in his hair, the other at his chest and her tongue in his mouth. Fierce need shot through him, almost painful in its intensity. He choked when she pulled back to breathe, and he pushed her away again. Regardless of how he'd appear, he scooted back just enough so she couldn't kiss him again. By the Norns, this kind of teasing was too much.

"When was the last time anyone's shown you affection?" Natasha asked.

Loki flushed, but remained silent. It was possibly answer enough.

"Or do you think everyone has ulterior motives and push them away first?"

"Oh, I _know_ they do," Loki snarled. Inside, he was roiling, uncertain what to do next. He was caught in place by the contract and the cuffs, by his own frustrated desires and loneliness.

"Not everyone does," Natasha replied, standing. He could clearly see how well the healing spell had worked on her; every movement was graceful, controlled. "And not everyone is trying to trick you."

Loki didn't believe her, and watched her leave in silence.

***

There were rapid fire missions after the first one, and somehow Loki got roped into participating even if magic was not involved. His skill with _seidr_ was requested and actually appreciated, something he hadn't expected. They didn't trust him, which he _did_ expect, but they didn't try to kill him outright or double cross him. Loki kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, when the others would turn on him even when he wasn't plotting against him. It simply didn't come. He couldn't bear to work with Thor, but otherwise he was feeling almost comfortable.

Natasha stayed close, which he found troubling when he thought about it. He brought up the implied threat of rape and murder on the helicarrier, but she merely shrugged. How much of the encounter had been manufactured, he couldn't say. "You dog my every movement," he told her after nearly two weeks of this. "What purpose is this?"

"You're an interesting bundle of contradictions."

Loki bared his teeth at her. "I am not for your amusement, mortal."

She came closer instead of backing away. A smoldering look was in her eyes. "I've seen how you look at me."

"You're in my way."

"Hardly," Natasha scoffed.

Getting angry, he moved to push past her. It should have been easy, as she was a petite woman in casual dress, her hair falling in soft waves. Natasha caught his arm, forcing him to look down at her. "Maybe I've been looking back," she told him. "Maybe I'd like to do more than just look."

Though he had never struck a woman in anger before, he was sorely tempted to do so now. He even raised his hand to do so, but again Natasha darted in closer and pulled him down for a kiss. This time, a hand snaked down to his crotch, rubbing at his cock through his breeches. Loki couldn't help but groan, then he grasped her shoulders to keep her close rather than push her away. "I want you inside me," she growled against his mouth. The sound went straight to his groin.

They didn't like each other, exactly, but didn't precisely loathe one another, either. Loki didn't know what her game was, perhaps merely curiosity. But his loneliness and physical needs were great. He devoured her mouth and opened a portal from the common area to his suite. Pressing her against the wall, he made short work of her casual clothing. Her full breasts were tantalizing, and he suckled her as he lifted her off of her feet. Natasha made soft, delicate mewling sounds, and suddenly he wanted to hear her scream in pleasure. He wanted to taste her, feel her, sink his cock deep inside her and claim her body as his. It was a primal instinct, one her own desire seemed to match, one that he planned to obey.

Loki had been on many worlds in different times thanks to his fall through the Void. His mind had stretched and warped, body twisted and reshaped; his Jotun heritage willfully was burned away, and his glimpse into infinity had driven him mad.

As a boy in Asgard, he had fumbled a few times with a household serving girl. Custom dictated very proper behavior, prim dress and very formal modes of address or courtship that would ultimately lead to a union for prestige or wealth. Midgard seemed to be much freer with their affections and expectations in this time than Asgard, and he had seen and learned much from the minds of the mercenaries that had been under his control. This meant he knew what to do to please Natasha, and he fully intended to make use of that knowledge. She would be _his_ this day, damn the consequences, and he would simply deal with any snide remarks she made if she was so inclined.

Carrying her to his bed, Loki covered her body with his to kiss her mouth. She tried to unbuckle and unlace his clothing, which proved to be too difficult to do with her hands wedged between them. "Loki," she began. Her laugh turned into a gasp of pleasure when his hand closed over her breast, fingers rubbing at her nipple.

"No, not yet," he growled against her mouth. He grinned when she mewled in pleasure again. "Else I'd be unmanned by your clever mouth."

When he moved to mouth her jaw and throat, Natasha laughed. "Like dirty talk, do you?"

Loki pinched her nipple hard, making her mewl in pleasure. "I want you crying out for my touch, wanting me inside you, wanting to be _mine."_

He kissed her again, tongue in her mouth, as he moved his hand down to the juncture of her thighs. Natasha was damp, not quite ready for him. With his fingers he coaxed her to a heightened response, where she grasped his head and shirt, tugging hard so he would continue. Loki laughed, delighted by this, and sat up abruptly, letting go of her. He shifted as she protested, until he settled between her spread legs and put his mouth to her flesh. She groaned in pleasure and flopped backward, an arm flung above her head and the other reaching down so she could run her fingers through his hair.

There was a trick that one mercenary had been especially proud of, twisting fingers inside of a woman while sucking on the clit, and Natasha was just as pleased by the tactic. Her back arched and she cried out, body tensing. She was practically pushing his face into her wet slit. Breath coming in pants, she gasped out something in Russian before falling limp on the bed. Loki reared back to take in the flush of her skin, the way her chest heaved with her breathing and the loose, long-limbed way she was sprawled. _Mine,_ he thought fiercely, and then made short work of his clothing. He pushed his length into her, hard and fast, desperate to dive deep into her heat. Loki groaned, the feel of her exquisite, and he paused for a moment to catch his breath, cradling the back of her head in his hands. She ran her hands down his back and hooked a leg around his hips, pulling him in even closer.

"By the Tree, you feel good," he growled, then started to thrust into her. He seized her mouth in a kiss, remembering too late that his tongue was covered in her juices, but she didn't seem to care. She kissed him as if her very life depended on it, urging him to push into her harder and faster and deeper and—

It would be cheating to cast a spell on himself to last longer in her bed, but he was entirely willing to do it. Loki wanted this moment to extend forever if possible, as he was certain it would be the only time he could have something like this. Natasha would regret this coupling in the morning. She would look at him in loathing, avoid him, feel her fascination with him was a mistake. He was always a mistake. But in this, her smiles and soft flesh beneath him were entirely his, entirely real. She wasn't faking her response, there was no need to. She obviously enjoyed his attentions, and even flipped him over with a smirk after he came the first time. Riding him hard and fast, her hands on his chest, Loki ran his hands over her as if he could memorize her by touch. He didn't let the spell end until she was utterly exhausted, body lying limp beside his, a sheen of sweat over her skin. He had spilled his seed inside her countless times, had stored up enough memories to get him through the lonely years ahead.

Only...

She didn't despise him the next day. Or the next. There was a smirk on her lips and a devilish twinkle in her eyes when she saw him. Natasha didn't seek him out specifically to share his bed, and she didn't avoid him. It was rather like before, with her eyes following his movements. It felt like a caress now, and he could imagine the light touch of her fingers over bare skin. Loki didn't automatically assume she was mocking him when she sought him out. Natasha was nothing if not direct about what she wanted from him at those times. She took him into her mouth and fondled him, pressed kisses into his skin, knelt in front of him and let him take her from behind with a savagery that had startled him. He felt like a demon when with her, as if this desire was something wholly separate from his usual self. There was no calculation, no cunning, no artifice. For once, he didn't feel the need to maintain an aloof persona and pull together a complex plot to devalue others. He didn't need to tear others apart and try to force his rule. It wasn't necessary to prove his worth to Thor, and through him, to Odin.

For once, he was only Loki. There was no revulsion, no curses, no attacks. She didn't flatter him needlessly or profess love. Natasha didn't lie about why she was there with him or what she wanted. It was simply satisfying a physical need she had, and he rather liked that.

He rather liked her, actually. He liked her a lot.

Loki was the first to notice when she was tired and rather lethargic in the evenings, grasping for tea and curling up on the couch without paying attention to the book she was reading or the movie they were all watching. She brushed off his concern for her energy levels and would push him down on his bed and ride him breathless as if to prove a point about her ability to keep up. She ate a bit more at meals, but that didn't seem to be out of proportion at first, given how many missions the team was being sent out on.

Everyone else noticed when she was dizzy enough to fall during a sparring session. She had run up to Steve while dodging one of Clint's dulled arrows, flung herself across the space with her hands out to grab Steve's shoulders. It was clearly intended to be an acrobatic takedown, but as she somersaulted over Steve, she lost her balance, twisted a little too far and landed hard on her back. Steve immediately thought it was his fault, and Clint was the one that realized she was too pale and sweaty for the maneuver. They got her to the kitchen to eat something, thinking it was simply low blood sugar, but Natasha really didn't have much appetite at that point.

When she hissed at Loki suckling her breasts, stating he was doing it too hard, he put his foot down. "Something is wrong with you. It's not a wound, but something is not right with you," he insisted. He didn't want to admit to himself why he noticed her so much, that even minute changes in her body worried him. She was a colleague that shared his bed because of mutual satisfaction. They didn't care about one another. It didn't matter what happened to her, really; if she was ill, she wouldn't desire him. Yes, that was it. That was all, that was the only reason he cared.

Natasha rolled her eyes and thought he was being melodramatic. It took a few more weeks of nagging at her before she consented to a checkup at a SHIELD facility. By that time, she was falling asleep far too quickly and earlier in the evenings. Her reaction time was just as fast as before, but she was dizzy during some of her complicated acrobatics and felt mentally sluggish. She let the medical resident and trainees practice blood draws and doing various tests. That was probably the only reason why a pregnancy test was even done, as the Red Room had performed a hysterectomy when she was eleven.

The test was positive.

She stared at the tech assistant and the physician's assistant in front of her. "What? That's impossible. Do it again."

"We did," the PA said, sounding almost fearful in the face of her stare. "Four times."

"Run it again."

"The last time we ran it, we did a quantitative as well as qualitative test." At Natasha's stare, the PA clarified. "I did the hormone levels as well as just present or absent."

"I know what quantitative means," Natasha hissed, eyes narrowing. "What is it?"

The PA was pale and nearly gulped. "It's consistent with ten week pregnancy levels."

Ten weeks. Which, the way pregnancies were counted, meant eight weeks of gestation time. Which coincided with Loki's healing spell and the time she practically jumped all over him because she was horny as hell.

Well, fuck.

She stalked into Loki's room, furious, and knocked the book he was reading right out of his hands. _"What did your spell do to me?"_ she raged at him.

"I only cast the one on you weeks ago," he protested, confusion clear on his face. "Your injuries since then were minor scrapes or bruises, nothing that required resetting."

"Resetting," she echoed. She stared at him incredulously, everything falling into place.

"Well, yes. It's a stronger variant of a simple healing spell, meant to restore the entire body to wellness..." Loki's voice trailed off at her expression. "What's happened?"

"I didn't need everything restored," she choked. "Just my arms and wrist."

"I don't understand..."

"I'm pregnant."

Whatever he had thought she was going to say, that clearly wasn't it. A flurry of emotions traveled across his face before he could stop it, but she could see surprise and joy chief among them. Natasha felt ill, and not just because of the pregnancy.

"There will be a child." He could hear the wonder in his voice, the hope he didn't try to hide. "On Asgard, the father names the child if he accepts it into his House. I hadn't considered many names before, but I will find an auspicious one for a Lokason."

Something like fear pulsed in her chest, hot and sharp. "I can't have this child."

"Don't be ridiculous. The restoration spell made you hale and whole, so the child will be safe enough in your womb."

"Loki, you're not listening to me."

"Speak in phrases that convey more than nonsense, and perhaps I will," Loki snapped, growing irritated. "There is nothing wrong with you. You're not sickly, not deformed, not of a diseased House. This had always been a questionable association, but they need not know that on Asgard. Unions have been built on less, after all, and we know already that we're sexually compatible, so that's one obstacle we won't ever have to face."

Natasha blinked at him. "What are you talking about?"

"A proper member of the royal house would have several nursemaids to assist, but I don't think I would count as a member of the royal house any longer," Loki continued, bitterness in his voice. "But perhaps that fool Thor would wish his so-called nephew to be raised in the style it deserves."

"You're not listening," Natasha repeated, growing angry.

"Say something of merit, and I might," Loki replied dismissively.

_"I will not have this child."_

Loki looked at her, and suddenly he seemed almost fearful. "What?"

"That got your attention," Natasha snarled.

"You aren't pleased." Loki finally seemed to take in her aggressive stance, the anger in her features. "Would you... do something?"

"I can't have this baby," Natasha told him flatly. "You have no idea how hard it is to stay on this team. I have to train constantly, I have to stay sharp. I can't lose my edge. They're going to treat me differently, not send me out on missions, not rely on me for watching their backs... You have no idea what that will be like." She glared at him, as if somehow Loki had planned all of this, as if he had intended to ruin her life. "I won't be useful anymore." Natasha was aware of anger and almost hysteria in her tone. Her hands were shaking, and she had to ball them into fists at her side to control her emotions. She wasn't out of control like this.

He looked stricken. "I understand. I do. But... Natasha, I have no kin. I don't know how it happened, that I could mate with you when you are not Jotun. I know I cannot ask anything of you—"

"No, you can't. You _don't_ understand."

"I'd take it from you, carry the child myself if I could." Loki's voice shook. "But it is anchored to you now, is it not? I can't take it from you. But that child will be the only true family I will have. Please," he whispered. "Please don't kill it."

"You have no idea what this will do to me," she said.

There was a faint niggling want, that maybe it wouldn't be so terrible to have a child, that she would know how to protect it because of her training. But with the job she had, the dangers she put herself through, the efforts to balance her ledger... What time could she have for it? How could she possibly be a good mother? She didn't have any role models for that, didn't know how she could deal with all the inevitable problems that babies went through. And as it got older, how could she manage that and still be an Avenger? She could hardly rely on Loki for that, and didn't think the other Avengers would help once they found out about this liaison. Even if they didn't expressly hate Loki, they didn't trust him at all. Especially Clint.

God, what would she tell him?

"No," Loki said quietly. His voice was small, humbled and damn near begging her to consider keeping it. "But I'll help you, however I am capable. I'll do whatever you ask of me, whatever I can do. I promise you that, Natasha." He took a half step toward her, hand outstretched but not quite touching hers. "That's what I was trying to tell you. I will help you in this. The child will not want for whatever I can provide."

She could hear the desperation in his voice, could hear something else beneath it that she didn't want to quantify. She had willfully ignored the way his looks had settled on her skin, the way his touch had grown less angry. It was a gamble, pushing him into this just because she thought he would be a good fuck when she was in the mood for it. The guess about his skin hunger and need for companionship had been correct, though, and Natasha thought perhaps on Asgard they simply didn't have casual hookups. Loki had certainly seemed to be more possessive than she liked.

"If I keep it, there will so many changes..." She shook her head and couldn't meet Loki's eyes. "My body's going to change, everything from the inside out. I wouldn't be able to do all of the things I'm used to, and that's if it's a normal pregnancy. You said it yourself, you don't know how I could possibly be pregnant. Something could go wrong. Pregnancy still kills women. It's still potentially dangerous."

Loki didn't say anything, merely looked at her with large eyes. There was that, at least. He wasn't trying to cast some kind of spell to force her to carry this child, or make her have others. He wasn't trying to get inside her head and change her mind. There was only his devastated look and the quiet desire to have a family. She could understand that. In that respect they were the same. But she had come to terms with being unable to bear children long before it was even a possibility, and had understood that she would have to live with a found family, a network of people she could trust and be trusted by. That was enough for her before.

Could she even be a mother? Could she take care of a life inside of her body, care for it and nurture it and not simply abandon it when inconvenient?

She must have said some of that aloud, because Loki was shaking his head. "You haven't abandoned me yet, and I am very inconvenient for you."

"That's true," she replied with a wry twist of her lips.

He got up and clasped her hands in his. "Please don't make any rash decisions. Once it's gone, it cannot be undone." Loki brought her hands up to his lips. "You know what I would ask of you. Can you at least think about it?"

"I have to think of the others," she said, disentangling her hands from his.

She had meant that she still had to be an asset, she had to be the Black Widow, she had to fight beside them. But Loki took it another way, because he blanched as he nodded. "You may tell them I ensorcelled you if you must." There was some pain in his voice, but she only recognized it because she knew him well enough for that by now. "I won't contest the claim, and they think ill of me anyway."

"I had just as much to do with this," Natasha told him dryly. "I meant, if this happens, they're short a fighter. And it won't be just for the duration of a pregnancy, but afterward. At least a year. It's not something I ever planned for."

"Or wanted?" Loki guessed, voice soft. She could hear the broken edges of it, grating and sad, lost. Never mind he had contributed to his own isolation, he would never see it that way. In his mind, he was forever wronged and isolated.

"Never considered," she corrected. "I was never supposed to be able to have a child."

Loki looked at her, head tilted as he contemplated her. "Because you were nothing but a weapon to them. You weren't a person."

"Exactly."

"That's why you came to me, isn't it?" he asked after a moment. "No pressure to be a person, as with the others. No need to pretend to be whole."

"That's part of it," she acknowledged.

"And now?"

And now there was a fierce longing and a spike of fear and the gnawing guilt that she could never be good enough, never. Her ledger was overflowing with all the evil she could never repay. She was a spy. A killer. She lied and stole, manipulated and murdered without much compunction. How could she teach a child how to be a good person? How could Loki, when he was just as broken and manipulative and tainted as she was?

"And now, I need to think about what comes next."

It wasn't a blanket refusal to have the child, at least. Loki would have to be content with that, because she wasn't going to give him more.

***  
***


	2. Decisions

Natasha knocked on the door to Clint's suite. The archer was lounging on the couch of his sitting room, playing a video game. She was amused to see that it was Assassin's Creed, and came in at his grunt of acknowledgement. Usually he played his games in the common room, but if he wanted to stay alone and not be social, he played in his own suite. Natasha was generally an exception to his "I don't want to talk to people" kind of mood, but this conversation might strike her name from that very short exception list.

"'Sup?" he asked, not taking his eyes off the screen.

She quietly shut the door and sat on the couch near him. Letting out a quiet breath, she decided it would be better to simply dive in and tell him. "I'm pregnant."

Clint was so startled, he fumbled the controller and dropped it. He ignored Altaïr falling and dying on the screen, gaping at Natasha. "Wait. I thought that wasn't even possible."

He knew everything about what the Red Room had done in gross terms, not needing details regarding training. Natasha had merely explained that steps were taken to ensure that no Widow was ever "lost" to pregnancy or nursing, wasting the valuable resources of the Red Room. Clint had never needed to know how she felt about it, as he could glean some of her feelings in just how she had explained it: matter-of-fact, a part of her history she couldn't erase and simply had to deal with. There was no point in having an opinion or emotions about it, because she couldn't change it.

But now things were different.

"It wasn't until Loki healed me with that spell. It reset _everything_ in my body."

Blinking, he thought furiously. "That's why you were in so much pain. That's why even Loki couldn't explain what happened." Natasha nodded, somewhat unhappily. "How do you feel about that?" Clint asked carefully.

"I don't know."

"Tash..." Clint wheedled, shifting closer on the couch.

Natasha let her eyes shut and she sighed deeply. "I really don't know. I'm... I'm scared," she admitted finally, opening her eyes. "This wasn't supposed to be a possibility. I didn't even mourn it, you know. It was just another part of me, just some other fact to tell them when you brought me in." She couldn't quite keep her lips from trembling. "But now it's real. It's happening, and I don't know what to do about it."

"Meaning?" Clint asked, brows furrowed.

"I should abort it," Natasha said in a rush, hands clasped tightly in her lap. "I wouldn't be able to function on the team. I couldn't fight with you or Steve. I wouldn't be able to infiltrate places. I'd be useless, dead weight. And I'd be sick, uncomfortable, moody and off my game. And that's just if it's a normal pregnancy. As much as the spell should have reset my body, what if it didn't? What if something goes wrong and this kills me? Even in normal pregnancies, women can suffer."

Clint placed both of his hands over hers. "But," he began slowly, sensing that this wasn't all of her thoughts on the matter. "It's still your child, still part of you. And if you did that, would you be any better than the Red Room, pruning out the girls that couldn't make the cut?" He watched as Natasha bit her lip and nodded. "And this might be a way to show you're not as bad as you think you are."

"I couldn't be a mother. Not with the hours I keep, the job I want to have. How could I do that to a baby? Leave it somewhere, die, and then it's alone. How could I teach anyone the right way to be?"

"Because you're living it. Because you're even struggling with this decision." Clint's hands tightened over hers. "You're trying to consider all your options, not just getting rid of it without thinking about what would be best for everyone. That's what a parent does, Tash. Trust me, that kid is going to love you no matter what you do."

Natasha let out a choked sound and leaned forward until their foreheads touched. "You told me about..." Her voice trailed off. "I wouldn't do that, I know I wouldn't. But if anyone knew, and then decided to use it against me—"

"Who's the father?" Clint asked gently.

The choked sound now was more like a bark of laughter. "Loki."

Clint was very still. "What?"

"I was horny and I fucked him. A lot." The noise she made next was suspiciously like the kind of hiccup used to choke back a sob. "I don't even _like_ him most of the time, but he was pretty damn good in bed."

"I really didn't need to hear that," Clint said dryly.

Now she laughed a little, but there was a bitter, lost edge to the sound. "He wants it."

"You told him."

"Right before I came here. I was so angry, I thought he did it on purpose. But that makes no sense, not if I really think about it." Now she didn't hide her sob. "I don't know what to do, Clint. I don't want it. But I want it. It's not any kind of practical, I shouldn't have it, I'd be a terrible role model..."

"Now hold it right there," Clint said firmly. "Choice of fuck buddy aside, you're an awesome role model. You made the decision to leave the life the Red Room trained you for, and that's hard as hell. The mercenary thing wasn't because you wanted to be that way, it's because they _made_ you that way. And when you made your own decisions, really made them, you struggled to do the right thing. You're working to save lives, to keep people like Hydra or AIM or whatever else from hurting people. It's not because you have to, but because you want to. Because it's the right thing to do. Because you know exactly what they're capable of, and you want to stop it. That's pretty fucking heroic, Tasha, don't _ever_ think it isn't. It's not an easy path you're on, but you do it without complaining."

"I have to balance my ledger."

"Yeah, but _you_ are the one that gave you the ledger. It wasn't us."

Natasha shut her eyes tight and nodded. "But if I did keep it..."

"Do you think I'd let you do this alone if you wanted to keep it? Even if it's Loki's kid? Or Steve? Even Tony would help. Pepper and Rhodey would be all over this, you know. And good God, _Thor._ He'd be fucking ecstatic, like it's going to change Loki or some shit like that. Don't tell me it's not true."

She barked out her laughter and opened her eyes. "Maybe."

"Oh, fuck that," Clint huffed. "You know how they'll react to this. You know it better than I do." He pulled her into a tight hug. "It's okay if you're afraid, Natasha. You're only human. I'm fucking terrified for you right now."

"You are?"

"Yeah. That poor kid... A bunch of superheroes as its family. The entire world better treat it right or we'll bring 'em all to their knees."

Natasha laughed, body sagging against his in relief as she hugged him back tightly. "You're not mad at me?"

Clint sighed but didn't let go. "Honestly? _Loki?_ The fuck were you thinking, Tash? If you wanted a baby daddy, I'd be the first to volunteer, you know." She smacked his arm and he yelped in pain. "What? It was fun, what we had. How come you didn't even ask this time around?"

She pulled out of his embrace and shrugged a little. "He was lonely and broken and I liked the look of those edges."

Sighing again, Clint shook his head. "This poor kid. You're not giving it the talk, okay?" At her blank look, he laughed. "The sex talk. Let's not warp the thing and having it look for the sorriest loser it can bang. That's just asking for trouble, really."

Natasha smacked him again, and he playfully yelped. "Shut up."

He grinned unrepentantly at her. After a moment, he sobered. "I know better than to ask if he hurt you, because I know he'd be dead right now. But... He didn't mess with your head, did he?" He relaxed when she shook her head. "Okay. I don't have to try to slit his throat, then."

"Are you sure you're okay with this?"

"Hell, no. But mostly because I figured that I'd be a loser of a father if I ever had a kid anyway. With my dad and Barney as role models?" Clint shook his head. "Some things just aren't worth the risk. But that's for planning it, you know. That doesn't mean I wouldn't try now."

"You're not the father," Natasha reminded him.

"Well, you're making me godfather, right? Even if you didn't do it officially, I'm not letting that kid out of my sight. With Loki as a baby daddy, we'd all want to make sure it's not fucked up."

Her lips wavered a bit, but she steeled herself not to cry. "What if I don't make it? Loki's not human. What if this doesn't even work and I'm worrying for nothing?"

"We'd still be here for you, Tash." Clint pulled her into a hug again and kissed the top of her head when she sniffled. "Whatever happens, whatever you decide."

She held onto him tightly. "Thank you." She sniffled and looked up at him with an almost plaintive expression. "I'd never want to lose you."

"No matter what you do, Tash, you never could."

***

Clint walked into the gym and saw Loki there going through stretches and forms that looked similar and different to tai chi or yoga. He pursed his lips, thought for about two seconds, then walked up to Loki and punched him with a strong right cross before the god could even open his mouth to ask what Clint was doing there. He looked down at Loki's sprawled form, the surprise bleeding into anger on his face. "That's for knocking up my best friend," he growled. "If _anything_ happens to upset her, I've got arrows with your name on it, just waiting to fuck you up."

Loki touched his jaw and worked it a little, then stood. The anger still simmered in his eyes. "She was hardly innocent of those encounters."

"I'm aware," Clint said tightly. "Frankly, you make me sick, and I have no goddamn clue what she sees in you." He looked Loki up and down in disgust. "For the record, I think you'd be a terrible father."

"It's likely a moot point if she decides not to keep the child," Loki replied acidly. Clint could hear the pain in his voice, and decided to squelch any sympathy he might have on that front. Loki was a sociopathic killer. He still wasn't sorry for the deaths in Stuttgart or New York, and certainly had never cared for the Chitauri he had led. It was all about his own wants and needs. Even asking Natasha to keep the baby was because _he_ wanted the child, not because she necessarily did.

"You're damn right, it's her decision. Can she even carry it to term? What's going to happen to a half human, half Jotun child? Is that even going to work?"

There was a tightening around Loki's lips that Clint had been looking for. So he had been worrying about that as well. Good. Clint hoped it kept him up at night. The bastard had to learn to consider others' needs sometime, and he sure as hell had to care about his own child. There were enough terrible fathers out there in the world.

"I would help with the child," Loki told him stiffly. "I will not abandon it, and I will not lie about its origins."

Ah, the sticking point. Clint had gotten the story piecemeal from Thor and his friends when they were ridiculously drunk on mead once. Add to that the vague bits he could remember while being possessed by Loki, and he had his own picture of what drove him to try to take over Earth. Still, it didn't excuse his actions, not by a long shot. He had wanted it made clear on every single SHIELD document that Loki was still a killer, still responsible for the thousands that were dead. Just because he helped the Avengers on missions out of duress didn't mean he was absolved of guilt.

"So is it going to be pale like Tash or blue?" Clint asked flatly.

Loki, already fairly pale, now looked downright sickly. "I'm not sure," he said slowly, as if the words were foreign to him. "I was born Jotun, but spells were placed upon my form as an infant." Each syllable was dragged out of him with great difficulty. "Then in the Void, much was changed or lost."

"Meaning?" Clint prompted when he fell silent.

"Meaning I know not if I count as Jotnar or Aesir."

Clint threw up his hands in frustration. "Great. Uber mutt, then. Tash is assuming the pregnancy would be as long as a human one. What is it for them?"

"An Aesir confinement can last between two or three of your years," Loki told him quietly. "I don't know what it would be for Jotnar, and most of them are destroyed."

"Destroyed," Clint echoed blankly.

"Their people were decimated before my arrival on this realm," Loki said dryly, though he couldn't meet Clint's eyes. Oh, great. More death at his hands?

"Awesome," Clint replied sarcastically. "So we don't have _any_ idea what she'll be going through with this."

"No." Loki at least _sounded_ appropriately concerned for Natasha.

There was no point in threatening him again if something happened. "Who would?"

"My mo—Frigga would possibly know," Loki said, catching himself before he called her mother. Really? Clint would have _loved_ to have someone that supportive to call his own, but Loki was a contrary bastard. "I do not believe she would come to my aid."

"Well, she wouldn't be helping you," Clint snapped. "Whatever issues you've got with her, I don't give a shit. I only care what happens to Natasha."

Loki's eyes snapped to his, and Clint was surprised at the intensity of emotion there. "On that point, we are in agreement."

"So?"

"If Natasha decides she will carry the child, I will try to contact Frigga. I do not believe she will reply, but I will try."

Clint took in the stiff posture and nodded. "Okay, then."

Loki called out as he left the gym. "Did she tell you what she decided?"

Was that fear in his voice? Did he actually look about to cry?

No, couldn't be. Clint shook his head. "She's not sure. There's a little time yet before she has to decide, if it's like a human pregnancy."

He nodded stiffly at Clint, then turned away. The slope of his shoulders was one of defeat, however. That Clint could tell very clearly. He really did want this child, really did care what happened to Natasha and the baby.

Maybe he wouldn't completely suck as a father after all.

Though Clint thought of the distant way he had treated the mercenaries, the manic laughter and the sickly cast to his movements. He was still a selfish bastard. And maybe being a good dad was still a selfish thing, Clint didn't know. But then, not every good dad was a good _person._

Loki didn't say anything else, and merely stood there with his back to Clint and his head and shoulders bowed. Without anything else to say, Clint left the room.

***

Natasha at first thought she would be one of those women that didn't get morning sickness. That was a misnomer, though. It was more like "any time of day but especially when it was really damn inconvenient" sickness. She had to push past the nausea to fight, but sometimes that was hard to do. She was already too dizzy to perform her usual spinning maneuvers, and the nausea felt like insult added to injury. It was everything she was afraid of happening, and beating on her opponent barely took the edge off of her anger. Ending it would allow her to fight again.

But she wanted it. And didn't want it. And wanted it. 

The others saw how she was not up to her usual standard. Loki remained silent, watching her like a large-eyed shadow, silently beseeching her to keep it. Clint was as steady as ever beside her, never saying a word in public without her say-so. Steve questioned her with his eyes and the occasional offers to take a break. Tony and Thor outright asked if she was ill.

"I'm not sick," she finally said after a few days. Her stomach roiled, but she opened her mouth anyway. Fear had never been tolerated in the Red Room, and she regularly pushed herself past her fear; that was called bravery in some, but she considered it her natural state of being. "I'm pregnant."

A stunned hush fell over the group, until Tony muted the TV in the common room. "Wait," he said, frowning a little. "Did you just say...?"

"I'm pregnant," she repeated, now wishing she had remained silent. Her disgruntled expression would have forbade a lesser man from asking the usual follow up for that kind of announcement in a single, unattached woman.

But this was Tony Stark. He regularly ignored the rules of propriety, sometimes just to prove that he could. "Wait, wait. So who's the father?"

All eyes swiveled toward Natasha, a situation she was not comfortable with at all. What kind of spy drew attention to herself, after all? She lifted her chin and glared at Tony, which had made the skins of lesser men crawl. Even he was not immune, but it didn't curb his curiosity at all.

"That would only matter if I decide to keep it."

The hush took on a different quality now, the shock a little more tinged in doubt and dismay. "But why wouldn't you?" Tony asked, confused. He was the only one that seemed willing to voice the question. "Do you hate the father that much?"

"Hate has nothing to do with it," she replied darkly. "Not everything in the world is about a man and his dick, Tony."

He blinked in surprise at the venom in her voice and leaned back, away from her. The move gratified her a little. "What? What are we talking about here?"

"If I choose to keep the baby, it will have nothing to do with who the father is," she said, the venom still present. "It will have everything to do with whether or not I can still contribute to this team and if I can still function as the Black Widow."

"But how do you suppose you would not contribute?" Thor asked, cutting off Tony. He had been quiet until now, though she could see that her mention of aborting a child disturbed him. He didn't speak of Asgardian children much, so she had no idea what their culture thought of them. Unless she took Loki's longing into account, and she was sure that had more to do with his own perception of not having a family.

"A pregnancy will slow me down. I'll be out of commission. I can't back you all up on the field. It'll be worse than my performance now, and that's bad enough."

"You single handedly knocked out five of those goons four days ago," Steve supplied helpfully. He shrugged at her glare, as if to say _Well, you did._

"It should have been eight to ten," Natasha replied tightly. "I was too slow, and I'm only going to slow down even more. I won't be able to do the maneuvers we're used to me doing, and I've already had some trouble with my take downs because I get too dizzy to make it useful. I'm not going to be able to run as fast as before, I won't be flexible as before. You're going to have to leave me behind because I can't contribute to the team and be out in the field."

"That's not your only worth, you know," Steve told her, voice soft.

Clint nodded at him gratefully, no doubt thinking _I've been telling her that for years!_ He didn't say anything, however.

Loki looked at Natasha, a pained cast to his expression. He kept silent, however, not about to say anything that might anger her. He was standing in the back, apart from others, and it occurred to her that he looked very small somehow. Despite his height, his lanky form seemed to shrink and diminish as she stared at him. Not literally, though that would have made her life easier. It was as if she could see past the bluster far more easily now, that the layers of braided leather and gold armor and his aloof demeanor were merely thin shells she could peel apart.

She knew him now, for better or for worse. It was too easy to tell when he was upset, when his rage was ready to choke him, when he wanted to tear the world apart with his bare hands if only his magic could be let loose.

"I can't leave you hanging," she murmured. "Your expectation—"

"Is that you take care of yourself," Steve said, cutting her off. "You're too busy worrying about us, what we need. What do _you_ need?"

That was the part that frightened her, really. She shouldn't need. She shouldn't want. That way led to pain and ruin, that way led to weakness. She couldn't be weak. She couldn't allow others to get the drop on her. Weakness wasn't allowed, was ruthlessly rooted out of the Red Room. Even the tiniest tendril could take root if left alone long enough, and the Red Room couldn't afford affection for anyone outside of the department.

It was only the tiniest flutter of her lips, the blink of an eye. Steve was on his feet in an instant, sweeping her up into a tight embrace. He was always too forgiving, too ready to think the best of her. Even Clint should know better, and there he was beside her. Tony held back, though the concern on his face told her how close he was to forgiving her for being Natalie Rushman. Bruce had warmed up to her, and was a friendly colleague who respected her skill and opinion. Thor thought her a shieldmaiden, a fellow warrior and friend, and no doubt would have crushed her in a hug if Steve hadn't gotten there first. Other friends of the team would have been there in an instant, too.

Pain blossomed in her chest, sharp and ugly, tearing down her resolve to remain aloof in front of them. They loved her, each in their own way, even though they should have known better.

And she loved them, too, though she would never say the words aloud. Somehow they had become important to her, a family she never thought she deserved.

"I shouldn't want," she managed to choke out. "I shouldn't need."

"Oh, Tasha," Steve murmured, sounding almost disappointed. Not in her, never in her, but that it had been drilled into her so mercilessly. It was the same way he couldn't ever get rid of his frugality or the way he looked to be sure that the others ate before he did, because he had been raised in a time of want.

"If you could have anything you wanted," Clint murmured softly, head bent to hers.

Natasha took a steadying breath and disengaged herself from their embraces. Her eyes met Loki's, and she saw his attempt to remain stoic. The others had all forgotten about him in their efforts to comfort her, and there was a fierce jealous note in his eyes. She wouldn't turn to him the way she could turn to Clint or Steve, he had to realize that, but emotions weren't rational things. He wanted fiercely, and that same skin hunger and desperation for companionship that she had capitalized on was still in place. Natasha doubted it was love in any sense of the word, but a need he didn't know how to fill with anyone else. The two of them were alike in many ways, and he would never be able to feel comfortable unless with someone similar. It would be a struggle, a sparring match where they were likely evenly matched, but that was the only way to win his respect and continuing affection.

She wasn't sure if she wanted his affection.

"If I could wish, if it mattered..."

She had her decision, she realized suddenly. She knew exactly what she wanted, if she could have it, and had been too afraid of the others' reactions. Seeing how they felt around her now dissolved the last of her hesitancy.

They wouldn't hate her, wouldn't think she was being selfish and cruel, wouldn't think she was leaving them behind, wouldn't think she was a horrible teammate.

"...I'd keep it," Natasha whispered. "I'd be horrible at it, but I'd like to try."

Relief in Loki's eyes was painful to look at. What was she doing, tying herself to him for the rest of her life? What was she thinking?

She wanted the feel of a kick inside her belly, the flutter of anticipation at meeting a child born of her body, the pain and agony and discontent of it all. She wanted what the Red Room had stolen from her when she hadn't realized what it could be worth. Having a child didn't make her special, didn't make her a woman, didn't make her more than or less than. It was simply something her body couldn't do before, but now it could. This was her choice, to experience this, to open herself to vulnerability and potential ruin, the madness of worry and sleepless nights, to feel the push and pull of humanity closer than she was used to having it.

This was her choice, hers alone. Natasha _wanted,_ a frightening enough concept, and possibly could even get it.

Everyone crowded close, and she let them, just this once.

Natasha _wanted._ The Red Room would be so displeased with her if they still existed, and that sensation alone was enough to make this a triumph.

***

Loki stood outside of Natasha's suite, feeling lost and out of sorts. Natasha hadn't acknowledged him as the father, and had pushed off the others' questions about the baby's parentage. She even brushed off questions about her prenatal care, which he found most troubling. The conversation the entire group had about the baby hadn't been avoided, exactly, but he could tell that she wasn't entirely comfortable with their interest. That alone let him know exactly how out of sorts she was; she was too much a consummate liar to be unable to hide her responses. Everything was usually scripted and deliberate, as her behavior toward him on the helicarrier and her seduction had been. Yet now, her emotions were plain to see, she was vulnerable, and even he could see it. Loki doubted that he was a trusted ally as the others were. They had earned her trust. He had only earned a place in her bed.

Natasha opened the door and crashed bodily into him. Her eyes were wide and startled, lips parted. He wanted to kiss them, and his body responded to her proximity. It had been almost two weeks since they had last slept together, and he ached to touch her skin and inhale her scent. Was this love? Or simply desire that couldn't be met elsewhere? Could he even tell the difference? Could she?

"What are you doing here?"

"I came to inquire about your welfare."

"You don't have to."

"Is our association at an end, then?" he asked, emotion choking him.

She lofted an eyebrow at him. "I'm keeping it. Isn't that what you wanted?"

Yes. But with her as well, even if he couldn't find the words to tell her without making him sound like a mewling girl.

It must have been evident on his face, because she tilted her head to the side to contemplate him. "You want more. A relationship."

Loki had his hands sliding down her back before he could think about what he was doing or how to put a different spin to it. "Are you opposed to such a thing?"

There was no point about asking about forging a union. The term was archaic on this realm and she would likely say no anyway. She was too fiercely independent, and would likely see it as shackles tying her to an unwanted companion. The thought galled him, but Loki would have to accept that. Using magic to cloud her judgment of him, even if his magic wasn't curtailed, would be cheating. It would sour any relationship they might have had, and he would always know he couldn't have a real response.

"What are you looking for?" she asked instead.

He would have to say something, he realized. She didn't know Asgardian expectations, and the two of them had certainly never discussed any long term propositions.

"You are the mother of my child," he began slowly, painfully. "I would like to continue to call on you. To speak of its care. To..." He choked a little, but swallowed painfully and lifted his chin. "I would like it if you did not lie about its origins."

"Do you think I'd keep you from it?"

"You and your organization hold the terms of my contract." Was that bitterness in his tone? Damn, he hadn't been able to calm himself down. "I have few rights in this realm for the duration."

Natasha met his gaze, appearing to be just as uncomfortable as he felt. "I won't keep you from it," she said finally. "You've been upholding your end of the bargain with SHIELD, and you've been fair with me so far."

Loki wouldn't let her move away, his hands on her hips. "What do you want of this, Natasha?" he asked, her name rolling off of his tongue with a sensual lilt. "Are we never to touch again? Is that what happens on this realm?"

"What happens on Asgard?"

He frowned slightly. "Confinement lasts two to three of your years, depending on the health of the child. Ladies of the realm content themselves with that, don't go into society or concern themselves with the needs of men."

"Or is that their excuse to go look elsewhere for physical needs?" she asked archly.

"Most unions on Asgard are for political or financial gain, to maintain status or to join different Houses."

"So there's no emotional connection."

"Often, there is none." Loki paused, then licked his lips before speaking. "I don't think I'm incorrect in my belief that you can at least tolerate my presence."

"Considering I'm pregnant, yes, that's a safe assumption," she replied dryly.

"I would not go so far as to say there is affection," he continued, pretending she hadn't spoken. This was hard enough to say without her smart mouth. That smart mouth was rather how they got into this situation. "But I would like there to be something more than duty between us. I would be there for the child."

"You've said that before."

"It's not simply to coerce you to keep it," Loki insisted, staring at her earnestly. For someone that had been nicknamed Silvertongue, he was having remarkable trouble putting his ideas into words. "I would be there to aid you and comfort you, if you would allow it. If you want something more than cordial interactions."

"Is that your way of asking me if I still want to fuck you?"

"I would not put it in such a crass manner." At her amused smirk, he bristled. "I am treating you with the respect due to a member of a royal or noble House, a high jarl. It is an honor few outside Asgard receive. You will not belittle me over common courtesy!"

Natasha slid her hands across his chest. "Speak plainly, Loki. You've been here long enough to know that I don't like bullshit."

Loki kept himself stiff and tried to slip the aloof mask back on his face, but it didn't feel quite right anymore. His lips parted when Natasha reached up to touch his jaw gently, her eyes never leaving his. He wondered what he was to her, if he was nothing more than an inconvenience of he might mean something more. Not that it mattered. But it would be nice to mean something to _somebody._

"I have only ever been an inconvenience to you. A monster to slip a halter upon. Is that not so? And now not only have you bedded the walking nightmare," he hissed, hand sliding down to cup her ass and pull her closer, "but my seed took root in your newly formed womb. A fact that you would have liked to erase if you could." His lips hovered an inch above hers. "That is truth enough, is it not?

"Sometimes, you are such a self-serving bastard," Natasha murmured. She hooked her leg around his and tilted her hips up to grind against his groin. Loki made a strangled sound, his hands tightening on her ass. He wanted to thrust into her, wanted to feel her tighten around his cock and hear her cry out in ecstasy. They got along then, no need for words, no battle for supremacy.

"Yet you cling to me."

"Or I'm just using you."

"There are simpler ways to get your physical satisfaction."

"Maybe they aren't satisfying."

With a groan, Loki seized her mouth in a kiss. It was wrong, he shouldn't want her, shouldn't dream of the way she had sounded and felt, the taste of her on his tongue when he woke. But he wanted her fiercely, needed to feel her body against his. It was a beautifully crafted weapon, one he longed to keep close.

"Holy shit. What am I seeing?"

Neither bothered to answer Tony, and after a moment, his mind whirred to the obvious conclusion. "Jesus, Natasha. You picked _him_ to be the baby daddy? That poor kid. And I thought I was fucked up."

Loki was glad he didn't ask outright if he had manipulated her or found a way to work around the spelled cuffs. It was likely due to their faith in her manipulative skills, but that also meant he didn't have a fight on his hands.

He would rather keep them occupied with Natasha's luscious anatomy.

But after a moment she pulled away to snarl at him to mind his own business. Tony was not one to leave well enough alone, however, so Natasha ultimately detangled herself from Loki's arms to caution him away. It wasn't until Tony mentioned something about making horrible life decisions that Loki paid attention, anger rising beneath his skin. He suddenly wanted so much to get back at him for all the snide remarks he had ever made, the intimation he was less of a man, that he was horrid and useless and wanting in so many ways he could never measure up to.

And Tony was insulting Natasha. Loki might doubt whether or not he could trust the spy, but others insulting her would not be tolerated.

Forgetting about the cuffs, Loki started to sling a spell at Tony. It fizzled, then backfired, sending him flying down the hall away from them. He only stopped when his head hit the wall and then through it a ways; reinforced drywall was still drywall, and now he was stuck in it. He was also dizzy and nauseous from the aftereffects of a failed casting, and would have wobbled and fallen if he had been on his feet.

"What the hell was that about?" Natasha asked him later, when Bruce declared he had already recovered from his minor concussion and Thor had lectured him for hours on the proper way to deal with Midgardians.

"He insulted you," Loki said, dimly aware that he was sulking.

"So? You've insulted me, too."

True, but not his current intent at all. "He made me angry."

"So?" she prodded.

"I didn't like seeing him make fun of you," Loki snapped, eyes flashing in anger. Why did she keep picking at him like this? Why did it matter? The casting failed, the spell backfired, he was the one that got hurt.

"Loki..."

"I didn't think he would physically harm you," Loki huffed, turning away from her painful gaze, "if that was what you thought I was concerned about. But words are weapons as well. You of all people should know that."

"Of all the weapons ever made, the most powerful by far is compassion. But you have to have compassion for yourself before you can have it for anyone else."

Loki didn't say anything more, and let her leave the room. This entire situation was a tangled mess he wanted out of. It was easier when it was a simple fuck to take the edge off, when there weren't _feelings_ or unwieldy _remorse_ trying to break through his behavior patterns.

Besides, he knew she didn't have enough compassion for herself either.

***  
***


	3. Bindings

Natasha stared at herself in the mirror for a long time, studying the changing curves in her naked body. Her stomach was starting to round out, and her palm curved protectively over it. She didn't feel anything yet, but she was only fifteen weeks along. After all of the initial lewd and sarcastic comments, Tony ultimately grew serious. Natasha would only answer questions when Loki wasn't around, and in as short sentences as possible. She admitted not looking for anything serious with Loki, just seeing if she could start something, then continuing it. There certainly weren't romantic feelings involved on her end, which made him feel better, actually.

"If we have to kick his ass, I don't want there to be tears or weeping or wailing. None of that kind of stuff," Tony had said.

Natasha rolled her eyes. "I don't love, not like that. Anything looking like that most likely is manufactured and meant to appear like love."

"O-kay. Totally creepy, by the way."

"I haven't gone to any checks at SHIELD headquarters the way they want me to," she told him when he asked about the medical department. "I don't want them studying me any more than necessary." Her arm had come to rest over her abdomen. "I won't have it be taken hostage."

Tony had nodded at her fierce tone. "Lemme see what I can do."

That had turned out to be making his own ultrasensitive sonogram equipment and hiring a tech to do the scans. Pepper's OB-GYN was taking on new patients, and the redhead was kind enough to accompany Natasha for her first prenatal visit. Natasha liked Pepper a lot, though she would have felt more comfortable if Clint had come along with her. He wasn't comfortable with that plan, however, so she had gone with Pepper.

Something fierce had taken hold in her chest when she heard the heartbeat, her eyes watering and her heart stopping for a moment. This was her child. It would be born of her body, free of the Red Room, free to be whatever it wanted to be, no drills forced onto it, no triggers or personalities laid into its mind. This being Tony's version of an ultrasound, however, the scans showed fine movements and a hint at the gender. "Most of the high resolution scanners only pick that up at seventeen weeks, and conventional ones see that at twenty," Tony had told her with pride for his invention. "Fantastic, isn't it?"

She closed her eyes and pressed her palm against her stomach. Inside her, swimming about without any clue regarding Natasha's turmoil, was a baby girl.

The air shimmered behind her and Loki stepped through. Her lips parted in surprise, but she otherwise didn't move. "Stark mentioned there were scans," he said in measured tones. Had he been hurt that she hadn't invited him to see the sonogram?

Natasha nodded as his eyes raked over her naked body. The slight swell of her belly would be unnoticeable to anyone else, but she knew it in the fit of her clothes. Loki didn't seem to be affected any differently at the sight of her naked body.

"I wanted to be alone," she found herself saying. "In case... "

"The child was a monster," Loki finished bitterly when her voice trailed off.

"In case there was no heartbeat," Natasha corrected. He blinked at her in surprise. "For all my worry, if she was dead, that would have been worse on you, I think."

"She?" Loki echoed faintly.

"It's a girl," Natasha said softly, fingers brushing over her belly. "Perfectly sized and shaped for a human baby this far along. The tech couldn't see any structural abnormalities and the heartbeat was strong."

Loki actually fell to his knees in front of her, wrapping his arms around her hips as he pressed his lips to her belly. "She's healthy, then. Not a monster," he murmured against her skin, a fine tremor in his arms.

"She's a strong girl," she whispered, her voice cracking. "Healthy, moving around constantly during the scan, so the tech wants to repeat the scan in another week or two to confirm she's a girl and development is on track." Natasha threaded her fingers into his hair and gently stroked his scalp. "You can come with me to that one, if you want." The tremors became shudders as he silently cried.

He believed family was only determined by blood. Maybe it was like that with most Asgardians, though Thor was quick to still call him brother. Perhaps it was because he had been born a Jotun, and was raised thinking they were all monsters.

When he pressed a soft kiss to the slight rise of her belly, Natasha had to close her eyes to keep her eyes from watering. He wasn't going to make her cry, dammit. He was a mass murderer, a sociopath, someone that had to be bound and restricted and kept under lock and key. But even sociopaths were capable of emotion. Even sociopaths could love, though it was some warped thing society wouldn't recognize.

And wouldn't some say she was a sociopath herself? She had her ledger, her rigid view of right and wrong that didn't always coincide with law. What did this say about her?

Loki's hands on her hips were gentle, and she opened her eyes to look down at him. He was looking up at her with a vulnerable expression. "Could I name her?"

"Maybe middle name," Natasha said, a slight rasp to her voice. "I didn't... I didn't expect this. To have a child. I want to name her."

His lips on her skin were soft and gentle as he nodded. "I didn't expect a child either."

God. How to name a girl neither thought they would ever have?

Natasha's breath hitched as he brought his lips to her skin again, kissing her gently. It wasn't for the baby, she realized. His touch slid lower, until the coarse red curls touched his upper lip. He looked up at her as he slid further down on his haunches, as if asking for permission without words. She lifted her leg over his shoulder, opening herself up to his gaze, and he dove in to lick at her. The delicate touch firmed after a moment, and she found herself fisting his hair to keep him in place. There was emotion here, something neither could give voice to, something more than simply fucking each other because of lust. Maybe because they saw through each other, because they understood the dance of words as sharp as swords, they measured their past in bodies and blood.

In some respects, they were the same. In others, vastly different.

He fucked her with his tongue, desperation bleeding through in his touch. Natasha held him in place against her sex as tremors built up, as she approached the precipice without saying a word. He worked her through to an orgasm, her cries high pitched and almost echoing in the bathroom. Standing, he spun her around and pushed at her back so that she gripped the counter's edge for balance. Opening the front of his pants, he didn't even bother to lower them. He slid his cock into her from behind, an intense expression on his face. Loki watched her as he thrust home, his eyes on the lines of her body and the fall of her hair against her back. Natasha watched him fuck her through the mirror, but his eyes never went to the glass. He wasn't doing it here because of a kink or wanting to watch himself with her.

When his eyes met hers finally in the mirror, she could recognize desperation and longing and _need_ there. All the tangled emotions he would never voice, that he would never show out in public. She reached behind her with one hand, grasping hold of his hip and pulling him into her. The touch seemed to be all he needed to close his eyes and come, features going slack with release.

In this moment, he was at peace. He was still, no scheming or plotting, no threats of violence, no rage bubbling up needing to be appeased.

Natasha shifted so that he slipped out of her, and she turned around to face him. Loki still had his head thrown back, his chest heaving erratically as he struggled to breathe normally. Ignoring the feel of his seed sliding down her thighs, she stepped closer and linked her hands through his. Feeling that, Loki opened his eyes as he looked down at her. His lips still trembled and his breathing hadn't slowed, but he still looked calm. As if for a moment, he had a place to belong.

She smiled at him gently, something sharp and painful in her chest. When she had felt that way, Clint had been there to pull her back from the abyss. She hadn't trusted any of the SHIELD issue psychiatrists, but she had trusted Clint. He had seen her at her worst, at her best, and all the places in between. Never once had he condemned her for it, had he thought her a monster. He had helped to teach her about right and wrong and finding them within the grays of her life. It was because of him that she had a moral compass at all, that she simply didn't see SHIELD as another employer to point her gun for. She might still tell lies and kill, but it was to save the faceless innocents of the world now, not just for a paycheck.

If Loki had someone like that now, could he be turned from the path he set himself on?

It would have to be her, she knew. But she could probably rope in the others to help, especially since they didn't trust him with her. She could absolutely understand the paranoia, and wasn't about to minimize any risk involved with dealing with Loki. He was unpredictable, chaos personified, but the attachment he held for her and their child might just be the hook that Natasha used to reel him in.

"Come with me," Natasha murmured huskily, leading him into her bedroom. He followed easily enough, eyes tracking her closely. Still vulnerable, still unsteady, not quite ready to trust but aching to. She would have to tread carefully.

He helped her remove the clothing, a mix of Asgardian and Midgardian, the better to blend in if he had to leave the Tower. At her direction, he laid down on her bed, and she simply crawled in beside him, tucking herself against his length. Loki held himself stiffly at first, so that she could almost feel his nervousness. They didn't do cuddling. It was hot sex and then separating to do something else. This was new and strange and something he couldn't quite trust. But when she did nothing more than rest her head against his chest, an arm flung over him, he relaxed into the touch and even put an arm around her. His breathing evened out, and his eyes closed.

It was nice to be held. It was probably nice for him to feel wanted, that someone wasn't afraid of his touch.

Natasha closed her eyes, knowing that Jarvis was always on watch. She was safe here, and Loki wouldn't harm her. Falling asleep in his arms wasn't just a convenience thing at this point. It was a tactical move, proving that Loki could be trusted.

And maybe, it gave her a little hope that this tie between them could actually work.

***

The second trimester supposedly created a lot of energy. Natasha thought of that as a bald-faced lie. Perhaps the sheer exhaustion of the first trimester was over, but she still had occasional bouts of nausea and didn't feel more energetic than normal. She felt like herself again, though she had to start rooting through her closet for elastic-waisted pants and skirts, and longer length shirts to hide her burgeoning belly. The men seemed uneasy about her accompanying them on missions, but knew better than to openly complain. It was at once endearing and annoying that they all checked that she was taking prenatal vitamins and eating heathy foods. Processed meats weren't often in the Tower, but now they completely disappeared, as well as sushi. Nobody ordered steaks rare when they went out, and even Tony cut back on his drinking.

Endearing and annoying. Natasha didn't want to feel singled out for being a woman, or thought less of. As much as they said they weren't doing it, she had to wonder if that was truly the case. _She_ felt less than sometimes, and almost resentful of the parasite growing inside her body.

"Don't call it a parasite," Clint reminded her when she let it slip out loud in his suite.

She rolled her eyes. "But it is. She can't survive on her own right now."

"Yeah, but I'm sure she'll take after you. Which means she will be born, survive when you least expect her to, and find a knife to threaten you with it."

"Newborns can't even hold up their heads on their own, let alone hold a knife."

Clint snorted. "Just ruin my image, why don't you?" he groused.

Natasha smirked and jostled his arm with her elbow, making him lose his place in Mario Kart. She actually let out a whoop of triumph when she won, and Clint snorted as he tossed the controller aside. "You cheated."

"Sore loser."

As he laughed, the air shimmered behind them. A portal opened, and Loki stepped through it, frowning deeply at the two of them laughing. Both assassins turned as one to look in his direction, tensed and ready to strike. "I have come for Natasha," he declared haughtily, clearly irritated at finding the two of them so close together. It didn't matter that their friendship was platonic at this point. Loki didn't like that someone else was important to her.

"What for?" Natasha asked, brows slightly furrowed.

"I wish to discuss something with you."

"If it's names again, you can have that conversation in front of Clint."

The two men glared at each other, which would have made Natasha laugh out loud if she had wanted to destroy their fragile egos. Men.

"I would prefer privacy for this conversation," Loki said stiffly.

With an exaggerated sigh and roll of her eyes, Natasha got to her feet. "I'll beat you later," she promised Clint.

"No hurry," he replied, waving her off.

The portal opened out into one of the conference rooms of the Tower, one far away from everyone else's living quarters to get some privacy. Once the portal shimmered shut, Loki gracefully fell to one knee and produced a ring box. The ring inside was exquisite, made of a silvered metal that looked to be the same material used in his armor. There was a marquise cut emerald in the center flanked by princess cut diamonds. "Marry me," Loki said as she contemplated the ring.

Natasha looked at his earnest expression, at the effort he had gone into making this look like a Midgardian proposal. But there was no emotion there, not as there was in any other dozen times they had fucked or even made love. No, he was doing this right now because he thought he had to, not because he wanted to, not because he felt it was necessary.

Handing back the ring, Natasha shook her head. "I can't."

He didn't take it, and looked at her in bewilderment. "But... Why not?"

Natasha watched his eyes stray to her thickened middle, and she wanted to hit him for that. She was more than a walking incubator, and she certainly didn't expect to marry just because she was pregnant. The concept was clearly foreign to him as she explained that, and he rose to his feet to tower over her.

"You're angry I didn't recall this sooner."

"Don't be silly. I don't expect marriage."

"Do you _want_ it?"

Ah, that was a much better question. His frown grew deeper when she shook her head.

"Why not? I could offer protection and comforts."

"I don't need that."

Loki scowled. "The child."

"We don't need to be married for you to protect her."

"Is it terrible for you to marry me?" Loki asked quietly. "We still share a bed."

Just that morning, as a matter of fact. He had knelt between her legs to lick into her, fingers thrusting into her slick warmth as he sucked on her clit, then she had welcomed him deep into her. Her body was more sensitive in spots, so she nearly saw stars when she came. He had laughed and suckled at a breast, driving her back up to the precipice quickly, then he had thrust into her again and again, until she shook and screamed with the next orgasm.

At her sigh, he looked closely at her. "Or is this another thing you never expected to have, so you simply never wanted it?"

Too fucking perceptive.

"You don't have to feel obligated to marry me," Natasha said, sighing again.

"But if I want to?" he asked in that same quiet tone.

"Why now? Why not when I first found out?"

A flash of anger flashed across his features. "You dismissed it out of hand then. But after some time and consideration, I realized that you were unaware of what I was offering, so I would have to do this the Midgardian way."

"I can't do this."

"As you said you could not have the child?" he asked archly.

Natasha flushed, caught. She felt so exposed, and thought that Bruce's "raw nerve" comments felt pretty accurate. "There were missions," she said brusquely, "where I had to seduce the mark. I was supposedly married for some covers."

"But not for SHIELD."

"It's a possibility. It's always a possibility."

"And you would not dishonor me," Loki said, reeling. "Cast out as I am, you would not dishonor what's left of my name."

"I can be cruel, but some things are too cruel, even for me."

Loki tilted his head to look at her, and he reached out to touch her arm. Pulling her close after a moment, he bent down to kiss her roughly on the mouth. "Keep the ring," he said, his voice nearly a growl. "It will remind you of my commitment. Marriage or no, I will protect our daughter. No matter what it takes, I will do it."

He lifted her up in his arms and then pushed her back to the wall. His mouth was sealed over hers, rough and passionate. Natasha wrapped her legs around his waist and held on as he kissed her. She looked at him evenly when he pulled back for breath, eyes searching her face. "You care about her, don't you?" he said, a vulnerable note in his voice. "You truly do. It isn't a lie."

"Not everything I say is a lie, Loki."

"You've mentioned that a time or two."

"I do want to keep her. I don't know how I'll manage, but I want to keep her."

Instead of leaning in to kiss her again as she thought he would, he simply leaned into her, arms cradling her to him. His breathing was harsh against her ear, his lips resting gently against the skin in front of her ear. It felt as though he was clinging to her for stability, as if he would be utterly lost without her.

Natasha threaded her fingers through his soft hair and pretended he wasn't crying. She shut her eyes and pressed her lips against his temple. "Our daughter will be safe," she whispered into his ear. "Everyone will keep her safe."

This was one promise she felt was safe enough to make.

***

Progressing into the third trimester was quick and painless. She still fought with the rest of the team, though she couldn't fit into her skintight nanomesh armor anymore. Natasha had to hide the burgeoning belly while fighting with her comrades, and she used more pistols, Widow's bites or shock discs than her hand to hand skills. Most bystanders had no idea about the change, which was just how she liked it. As a first—and truthfuly, likely only—pregnancy, Natasha really didn't start to dramatically show until she was almost seven months along. She could hear the others whispering about adding to the team to replace her for a few months. It was a necessity, one she had anticipated, but it still stung to hear about. There were a few options within SHIELD, as well as some of the costumed vigilante heroes within New York City.

Natasha threw herself into what should by rights have been her final outing with the Avengers. It was a man who had been rejected by AIM and Hydra as too unstable to work with, and his specialty was robotics. He felt that targeting Tony Stark would give him some cachet with those groups, so he built five robots that he controlled via a panel on his arm. Why did these men always have a mad scientist cackle?

Though she should have been far enough away to escape notice, there was one robot that charged her and Clint. It swung an arm, and she didn't duck back fast enough. She was flung into a parked car across the street, the breath knocked out of her lungs. Nothing was broken, and she had landed on her back. The baby still moved around, her adrenaline spike giving her a little more excitement to respond to. Because of that, she waved off the others' concerns.

She shouldn't have.

A sharp cramp woke her from sleep, and her jerking woke Loki, who had curled around her in bed that night. He hadn't wanted to leave her alone, and she was glad of it in that moment. Putting a hand to her belly, she grimaced and struggled to get out of bed to use the bathroom. There was a warm gush as soon as she stood up, and she looked down, irritated with herself for not being able to make it to the bathroom to pee.

But it wasn't urine. It was blood.

The gush of blood sent panic through Natasha, and she found herself screaming in actual terror for the first time since she was six years old. Pure panic rushed through her, sharp and jagged, tearing through her chest and leaving her breathless. There was no pain, nothing but blood between her legs, and the panic of _Too soon, too soon, it's too soon, she can't be born yet!_ as an incessant litany in her mind.

Loki woke instantly and met her frightened gaze with his own. There was no dedicated obstetrics unit in the Tower yet, though some of the equipment was already in place. He knew an ordinary hospital was out of the question, as Natasha guarded her privacy fiercely. Taking her to NYU or St. Luke's-Roosevelt or Mt. Sinai or any Manhattan-based hospital would broadcast her condition immediately.

Without much choice, he swept her up in his arms and opened a portal to the helicarrier's medical bay.

Immediately there was a klaxon blaring and the medical staff started shouting. But Loki started shouting himself, demanding that their staff look to Natasha. He knew he probably should have attempted a healing spell, but was too rattled by the sight of the blood to be able to concentrate. "Do something!" he shouted. "She could be dying!"

Later, neither he nor Natasha would be able to tell who he meant by that statement, her or their daughter.

Nurses and one of the doctors snapped to attention, and Natasha was taken from his arms and put onto a gurney to be examined. He wasn't allowed to stay with her, though he possibly could have pressed the point if he wished. But that would reveal that the child was his; as much as SHIELD medical staff would guess at it, they wouldn't actually _know,_ and could assume that Loki merely brought her because he could open portals and it would be faster than Iron Man could airlift her. The nurses and doctors would likely take samples of her blood and tissues while she was here, and Loki knew enough of human medical technology and physiology to know that fetal blood cells passed through to the mother's bloodstream. That meant that with each vial of Natasha's blood that they tested, they could spin it down and find his daughter's blood cells to test as well. He would have to come back later and destroy it all.

There were calls from Clint and Steve to medical in the next half hour, making arrangements for their visits. SHIELD denied visits to Tony and Thor, but they couldn't deny Clint or Steve, as they were still SHIELD personnel. Angry, Tony declared that he was going to start the final touches on the medical suite at Avengers Tower and develop his own clinic. "It's morning in Tokyo, so I'll see if one of our subsidiaries can spare some people," he declared loudly over the speakerphone. "And Pep knows people, we'll be set in a few hours to bring you back home."

 _Home._ Because that was what it was, and not just a place they all gathered to help contain Loki's madness.

Once Natasha was declared stable, she was put in a private room. Doctors estimated that she would be able to be moved in a few hours. "The baby's fine, placenta and amniotic sac are still intact," the doctor declared. "She was moving around during the sono, as a matter of fact. The bleeding came from some lacerations elsewhere, and the blood likely pooled as you slept, and that's why it came out when you stood up."

"So we're okay," Natasha had said in relief, sagging a little into the bed.

"Yes. But I still would recommend bed rest for the next few weeks to be sure you get your strength back up. You lost a lot of blood today."

He had a lot of other things to say, discussion regarding pregnancy and prenatal care that Natasha already knew. The doctor, however, had never seen her before and assumed she had never gotten any follow up. After they were alone, Loki was pale and shaking as he sat down beside her. "I'm glad you're both well," he rasped. When he saw the tremor in his hands, he clenched them into fists and kept them in his lap. He tightened his jaw, looking down for a long moment.

Natasha couldn't speak. She was too worn out to even try to find words for him.

He looked up finally. "I do not think this was deliberate. You were devastated at the possible loss of her. You want her as much as I do. But if it had been, if you changed your mind and had sought to kill her, I would have killed you right there and then, and anyone who tried to save your life."

"Not exactly a sign of a healthy relationship," Natasha commented, her own voice far more feeble than she would like. Her daughter kicked inside her, rolling over as if nothing was happening.

Loki's eyes blazed, fury barely banked. "I have a family in sight, and I will not let anyone take it away from me. Not even you."

In that moment, Natasha understood how Loki could have turned from a loyal Odinson to the monstrous sociopath he had become. It wasn't that he was an untapped wellspring of hatred as he liked to think of himself. It wasn't just the chaos trapped beneath his skin, simmering constantly and needing an outlet.

It was frustrated love and desire, disappointment souring it and turning it foul and ugly. It was the devastation of boyhood dreams dying painfully. It having everything he thought he knew be overturned in an instant, no one helping to keep him from floundering. He might not have accepted help, but it had never even been offered. So the hatred turned inward, then outward. He didn't even know himself how it had started or why, but Natasha could see it now.

"She's my daughter, too," Natasha rasped. "She's innocent. I'd never harm someone innocent, you know that." She let her hand flop to the bed weakly, and Loki shifted immediately in the chair to grasp her hand tightly in his. "The doctor says this happens sometimes, even in a normal pregnancy, even if there hadn't been any trauma. And we both know this isn't normal."

Natasha could feel the tremors in Loki's grip, the fears he would never voice. "She lives, though," Loki murmured, not quite meeting her eyes. He stared at the rise of her belly, a sickly cast to his features. "She fights to live."

"This isn't even the hard part, you know," Natasha told him tiredly. At his questioning look, she laughed bitterly. "There's the birth and then _raising_ her."

Now Loki really looked ill, and rested his head on the hospital bed.

Someone had to be having a grand time watching them flounder.

***

The weeks of bed rest went by without anything untoward happening. Her usual OB had thought that the SHIELD doctor's suggestion was going overboard, but also knew that without the admonition, she might not have gotten enough rest. When she was at the thirty-two week mark, she was allowed to move around the Tower more easily, but was expressly forbidden from participating in missions or doing much more than low impact aerobics to keep her body supple. Natasha chafed under the advice, but grit her teeth and followed it to the letter.

Labor began on the fifth day of the thirty-ninth week, a fact that made everyone breathe a little easier. To date, everything had progressed in the manner of a human pregnancy, with nothing untoward seen on the serial sonograms or blood tests. Loki had indeed gone into the helicarrier to destroy all physical samples of Natasha's blood and tissue. What surprised them both was Bruce and Tony hacking into their mainframe to delete the data from their servers. Bruce kept a copy of it all on one of Tony's protected servers, mostly so that he could puzzle over it and see how human and Jotun DNA could combine in the first place.

At the end of it all, a squalling baby girl was born, her face contorted as she wailed at the indignity of being born into a far colder place than she had been. The neonatal nurse didn't need more than the standard isolette, as there was no difficulty with the girl's Apgar scores. She weighed in at eight pounds two ounces, was twenty-one inches in length, and was immediately clutched as close as Natasha could hold her.

It had been a natural birth, no drugs at all in case it interfered with the birthing process or crossed over into the baby's half alien physiology. That had been torturous, but Natasha had been trained to withstand that kind of pain. Still, that wasn't the cause of the tears she shed as she looked down at her daughter, pink bud mouth puckering and her green eyes staring up at Natasha as if she could see her. There was bright red fuzz on her head, and her skin was so pale there was a bluish tint to it. The neonatal nurse hadn't mentioned any obvious deformities, and had treated this like a normal human baby.

She was beautiful. She was beautiful and perfect and _hers._ It was unbearably selfish of her to want and need and have this child, yet for this one moment, Natasha couldn't regret a single thing.

Natasha sniffled and looked up as Loki approached the hospital bed. The others were waiting just outside the suite, arguing about who should go in next. Clint wanted the honors, but didn't want to be near Loki. He still would prefer to avoid the trickster if he could, but felt he had the right to be there. Steve offered to go in with him, and both Jane and Pepper suggested that they go in first. Bruce finally suggested that they all crowd into the room at once. Thor was pleased with the suggestion and wound up leading the way before Natasha was ready.

So they all walked in on Natasha attempting to breastfeed the baby girl, her hands shaking as she did so. Loki was looking on, appearing to be so stunned by the birth that he was about to collapse.

Natasha looked up with a watery smile, exhaustion, pride and anxiety plain to see. "Hey," she said, her voice a little hoarse from her grunts and screams of pain.

Clint came closer, on the opposite side from where Loki stood. He sat in the chair beside the bed and rubbed her shoulder in a comforting gesture, grinning when her smile widened a bit. "Hey. Looking good."

"Feeling good," she told him. "Mostly."

"She's beautiful," Thor said, awe in his tone. The goofy grin on his face was good to see, though Natasha knew he'd love the child regardless.

"She looks like you," Jane commented, a soft smile on her face. She leaned into Thor, who put his arms around her. Natasha wondered when they would announce a marriage or impending pregnancy of their own, especially now that everyone knew it was possible for Asgardians and Midgardians to procreate. Knowing Jane, it had probably slipped her mind, paling in comparison to her studies on the Bifrost and the energies inherent in Mjolnir that Thor could command. Thor would get around to asking her soon enough, in possibly a very flowery and impressive display of affection, because that was simply the sort of person he was.

"I love that we've got another redhead in the house," Pepper said with a grin. She had flowers and a beautifully embroidered outfit in white and pink for the baby to wear, which was possibly very impractical but impressive just the same. "I'm sure she'll be just as fierce as you are."

"What's her name?" Steve asked, a pleased grin on his face as he took in the sight of the baby at Natasha's breast.

Natasha looked at Loki first, who gave a subtle nod. "It will be safer if no one knows she's Loki's daughter. Her name is Rose Lina Romanoff."

***  
***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story was born of characterization stuff that Jessy and I had talked about off and on during my own pregnancy. I think there was some Tumblr gif of a guy looking down at a child flailing on the floor and we joked about how Loki would be that kind of a parent. I actually started writing this story at the end of July (after my son was born, because it's not like I wasn't busy enough, right? Right.) and I left it up to her to pick the gender of the baby. She picked a girl, for the potential crises it might cause for Loki, because we do so love to make him angst. I named her Rose, after the Black Widow comic "Name of The Rose," which I still haven't read.
> 
> And lo and behold, Scarlett Johansson gave birth to a baby daughter named Rose in September, right before I finished the raw text of this story. Total coincidence, I swear.


	4. Fears

Prior to Rose's birth, Tony had set aside a larger suite for Natasha to use with the baby if she wanted to. Loki had thought it was a good idea, but Natasha hadn't wanted to do that right away. It had been out of fear that something would happen during the delivery, some last minute disaster that meant Rose didn't survive.

But she did. And according to the private pediatrician that Tony had hired, Rose was thriving like any other neonate would be. The pediatrician didn't comment on the blue tinge to the baby's skin, or ask about the parentage, which Natasha was grateful for. She and Loki may have agreed that patronymics would paint an even larger target on the baby's life, but that didn't mean she wanted to think about how he would respond in the longer term.

He stayed in her suite most nights, as he had done in the weeks leading up to the delivery, watching her with the baby with a thoughtful expression on his face. It was almost comical how concerned he was to have Rose in his arms, as if he would drop her or harm her in some way. She was a squirmy but content baby, sleeping for an hour or two at a time before demanding quite vocally to be changed and fed and cuddled back to sleep. It was an ear-splitting scream, not the gurgles she would make when awake but not needing anything. Loki was startled the first time he heard it, and wanted to push her bassinet to the opposite side of the suite to sleep.

Natasha had smacked his arm and picked up the baby before going to the changing table to check on her. "She's wet and hungry, Loki. Moving her won't change that."

"But she won't be as loud."

"She'll get louder if you ignore her."

"How do you know that?"

There was only the slightest of hesitations before she answered "I worked with young children before."

"What? When? How?"

"Never mind that. It's not important." Natasha changed Rose deftly, then sat on her bed to feed her. "Babies don't sleep through the night."

"You're already exhausted," Loki observed.

"And still bleeding," Natasha commented. She idly stroked Rose's back as the baby sucked greedily, hands clenched in tiny fists near her cheeks. Her eyes were closed and she didn't really respond to the soothing hand at her head. "I'm healing well enough, but I'll probably be bleeding for a few weeks."

"Birth is ignoble. And disgusting."

"No arguments here."

Loki watched the two of them for another moment before sitting up abruptly from his sprawled position on the bed. Natasha may have wiggled around a bit and shifted position on the bed, but she made sure Rose wasn't jostled at all. She continued to drink in great, greedy gulps. "That doesn't hurt?"

Natasha sighed and managed not to roll her eyes at him. "No. And even if it did, I would still do this for her."

"I don't understand."

"You heard the doctors talking about it ad nauseum..."

He waved dismissively. "Yes, I'm not talking about that. But that you would continue to inconvenience yourself to care for the baby. On Asgard there are nursemaids and nannies to do such menial tasks."

"Would you trust any of them with your child?" Natasha asked archly.

That gave him pause. "The ones Frigga and Odin used were oathbound to our House, and likely laid with spells to prevent maltreatment. I believe such tactics are frowned upon in Midgard," Loki said.

"Very much so," Natasha replied wryly.

"It doesn't disturb you to know of Samuel and Carol working in your stead?"

Natasha sighed. "I'd rather someone have their back. Steve and Sam are friends, and Falcon is a great addition to the team. Carol is Captain Marvel. She's more than adequate to help them."

"But you miss it."

"I do," she admitted with a sigh.

They both looked at Rose, who was starting to pull harder and seemed upset. Natasha switched sides with another sigh, but Rose settled down again.

"She looks most like you." Loki reached out, almost hesitantly, but finally touched Rose's arm, tracing the embroidery on the onesie.

Pepper, as it turned out, had gone overboard with getting clothes and furniture for the nursery in the other suite. Possibly that was a reaction to hearing how little Natasha had nested ahead of time, possibly because she and Tony weren't planning to have children either. "Are you kidding?" Pepper had asked incredulously when Natasha had asked her about it. "I already watch over Tony. I don't think I have time to take care of another child full time."

Loki continued to stroke Rose gently. "It may change as she grows older, but for right now it helps with the fiction that her father is uninvolved."

"Sooner or later, the public is going to find out about her," Natasha told him quietly. She stroked the back of Rose's head. "I'd rather put that off as long as humanly possible, just to keep her safe."

"Will it really?"

"If she's not a target and she lives here, it's as safe as any other place I can put together."

"I perhaps should not be surprised that you are capable of such gentleness," Loki said after another moment of watching Natasha nurse.

"I would imagine this entire episode is enlightening."

Loki nodded and let his hand fall from Rose's arm. "She's fragile. She's so little." He let out a long breath and looked at Natasha's drawn and exhausted expression. "And you are not, in some ways. You are not as easily broken as I once thought you would be."

"Am I supposed to feel comforted by that?" she asked tiredly, not up to the verbal fencing at nearly two thirty am.

He paused, contemplating how to word his answer. "It was all a game before. And even with her growing inside your womb, it didn't feel quite real. Even feeling her move inside of you, I could not imagine this moment. You keep moving, you reshape your world to make her comfortable and settled. I find it difficult to picture others doing the same."

"Frigga, you mean."

Nodding, Loki looked from Rose to her tired eyes. "I cannot imagine her waking every few hours. I cannot imagine this level of sacrifice."

Which was why Natasha could never picture Loki as a father. Or herself, for that matter, though she was very good at sacrifice. She didn't feel maternal, not in that soft way that women seemed to have in movies. But she was fiercely protective and would slit the throat of anyone intending to harm her child. Perhaps it was the same thing, just filtered through her experiences in the Red Room and as a spy.

"Go to sleep, Loki. You can take care of her the next time she wakes up."

Horrified, Loki made his excuses and retreated to his own suite down the hall.

***

Frigga arrived to visit Rose without the fanfare that Natasha would have expected. She was in her regal finery, the heavy embroidered silks and underdress, the long dangling earrings and gold chains as well as the circlet and intricately braided and curled hair that befit her station as the Allmother. Natasha was in a nursing tank and yoga pants, and hadn't particularly cared that she walked around barefoot. The others were used to it by now, and both Sam and Carol had been sworn to secrecy to protect Rose's life. They likely could guess at Rose's father, but were kind enough to avoid gossiping or throwing it in her face.

Natasha blinked at the sight of Frigga in the common room, still holding her daughter over a burp cloth on her shoulder. At least she was done nursing, and had been rubbing Rose's back when the queen walked into the room. "Oh."

But the queen smiled at Natasha and entered the room as if she had been formally announced by a courtier. "Natasha," she said, still smiling. "Don't worry, we need not be so formal. Thor told me about the birth, and he and Jane thought it best I waited for some time before coming to see her. Jane thought it might be too overwhelming."

"Oh."

Really? Really? Natasha wanted to kick herself. Obviously she had gone soft; she had been trained to withstand pain of all kinds, tortures beyond even the average terrorist's nightmares, going without sleep for seventy-two hours and still fighting through broken bones. Despite this, she felt cognitively dulled and numb, as if she was nothing more than the automaton that the media liked to portray her as if they weren't calling her the eye candy or gratuitous piece of ass. Stupid fuckers.

Drifting closer, Frigga kindly held her arms out. "May I see my granddaughter?"

With a soft sigh, Natasha carefully transferred the sleepy infant to Frigga's arms. There was no need to caution her how to hold the baby as Natasha had to do with her teammates all the time, which was nice. Frigga's entire expression lit up as she looked down at Rose, a soft sway in her posture as she held her.

"Loki doesn't usually call you mother," Natasha found herself saying, feeling awkward around the queen. This was not exactly an ordinary situation; this entire pregnancy had been unplanned, and she had steadfastly refused to think of Asgardians as inlaws. In fact, she had refused to think at all about what it would be like once Rose was born, because planning for all those contingencies was terrifying.

"He is very angry and very stubborn," Frigga replied, still smiling at Rose. "It doesn't mean I don't still call him son."

"Would he be angry with that?"

Frigga shrugged delicately, not disturbing Rose. "Possibly. He's still my son." She looked up at Natasha with a smile. "Come, dear. You obviously don't wish to speak about him, and I wouldn't want to sour this visit with such prickly conversation. Why don't you tell me about the pregnancy and how she's been doing? I was warned away before, but Jane just assured me that my visit would not be unwelcome."

"No," Natasha said, blinking in surprise. "I didn't think you'd want to be involved. I didn't think to even ask, actually."

"What of your mother?"

Natasha's posture stiffened slightly, just enough that she could feel it but the average observer wouldn't notice. "Died when I was five."

Frigga was hardly the average observer. "I'm sorry." She gracefully sat on the couch, holding Rose steady. "Losing parents is such a difficult thing for a child to live through, so heartbreaking."

Perhaps, but Natasha barely remembered her parents. The Red Room saw to that. She didn't say anything about her early years, and merely sat down near Frigga, her eyes on her daughter. Perhaps Frigga had felt that way about an infant Loki, and that was why she hadn't cared that he was Jotun.

Unused to talking about herself with much detail about anything, Natasha managed to describe the pregnancy and delivery. She put in the details she thought most pertinent, and Frigga listened intently, a faint smile on her face. Natasha had the feeling that anything she said would have been welcomed.

Why hadn't she called for Frigga sooner? Why had she believed Loki when he said that Frigga wasn't interested in the baby?

If she was honest with herself, which was a rare enough event, it was out of fear. What if Frigga hadn't approved? What if she had thought Natasha was some kind of gold digger, intent on getting her hands on the throne? What if she learned the truth about Natasha's past and disapproved of it?

What if?

"She's so precious," Frigga said, still content to hold Rose. "I never had a daughter. I think I would have liked that, having a daughter to teach. It's different, teaching Loki the _seidr_ or the style of swordcraft I prefer. The expectations in Asgard..." Now the smile was bittersweet. "In hindsight, I may not have had wisdom enough to temper him after all."

"What do you mean?"

"We knew what he was, obviously. I knew what it would mean if a Jotun baby was raised in the palace, even one that was likely a half breed."

Natasha's lips parted in surprise. "He's not a full Jotun?"

"Probably not. He's hardly tall enough to match the Jotnar at full growth, and the spells to shield his appearance were far too easy to graft into his body." Frigga gave her a sad smile. "It was hardly painless, but we thought it was best. We didn't want him to feel any different from us. We wanted him to feel a part of our family, our son. The only spell that never really took was the one to color his hair. His skin, his eyes, some of the other features of his Jotun heritage... Well, no one questioned why our younger son had black hair. It was simply a quirk that was explained away as stress during the confinement because of war."

"How did you fool the people into thinking he was yours?" Natasha asked in surprise. "They would have realized—"

"My second son was stillborn."

Frigga looked down at the sleeping Rose, at the rise and fall of her chest. "The birthing was difficult. I'll never know if that's what killed him, or if he had been dead before that time. The Healers never needed to use the Soul Forge until the second day of my labors, and that was when they saw he was dead." She let out a soft sighing breath, pain etched into her features before she schooled them smooth again. "Delivering him rendered me unable to bear Odin other sons."

"Or daughters," Natasha murmured, scooting a little closer.

"Or daughters," Frigga agreed, looking at her with a sad smile.

"So taking in Loki helped?"

Her laughter was remarkably bitter. "Not at first. I grieved, you must understand that. I hear tell that you were unsure whether to continue the confinement or not." She waited until Natasha nodded hesitantly. "But now, surely you look at your daughter and rejoice in her. Surely you have dreams for her, plans of who she might be as she grows, ideas how to raise her up."

Natasha's breath caught. She hadn't allowed herself too many of those. Too many what ifs of another nature, too many doubts. "Maybe," she said softly.

"Imagine, then, all of those dreams dashed in an instant. Imagine your heart ripped out of your chest in a single stroke, then further insults piled upon the injury, that there would never be hopes like that again."

Oh, yes, Natasha understood what that felt like.

Seeing that understanding on Natasha's features, Frigga nodded absently and looked back down at Rose. "I mourned, not ready to reveal the loss to the people. Then Odin returned unexpectedly, silently, carrying this infant boy, a helpless child left alone to die. Not even a single swaddling cloth to keep him warm. Jotnar may tolerate the cold of their realm, but even they still need some warmth, and especially that of their young. But Loki had been left to die, and Odin asked if I wanted to keep him. If I thought it could help heal my heart, if I could bear to look at another child without remembering our lost son."

"And you did."

"There had been enough death," Frigga said quietly, looking back at Natasha. "There had to be balance. My son died unborn, and here was a child born that was waiting to die. I could not allow it then, and I would not allow it now, even knowing what Loki has become." She looked down at Rose again, tears in her eyes. "I could save his life, I could give him that gift that had been denied my son. So I took that chance and made him mine, and did what I could."

"He thinks he's a monster."

"But you don't, do you?" Frigga guessed. "You would not carry a monster's child."

"He's an unrepentant murderer is what he is," Natasha replied. "He's self absorbed, vain, arrogant, and an accomplished liar."

Frigga's lips quirked. "You know my son very well. Yet?"

"Yet nothing," Natasha replied. "Having Rose doesn't change what he is."

"Is that why you have not married him?"

Natasha sighed. She really hadn't wanted to get into this with Frigga. "It's one reason," she said finally. There was also the fact that she didn't want to be tied down, didn't want any more things slowing her down than necessary. She had taken on the risk with her daughter's association, with keeping her friendships with the Avengers and SHIELD agents. But relationships were dangerous. They were ties that could be used against her, could strangle her, could lead to her destruction.

Yet a Black Widow alone, while a dangerous thing, was also a lonely thing. It might have been best for her safety, but it also left her with nothing else but her ledger. She could drown in her attempts to add to the black, could lose sight of why she was doing it. The red had to have balance, after all. If she forgot why that balance was so necessary, she might as well stop trying.

"Is he cruel to you? Thor assured me this was not the case."

"I can handle myself if he is. He has his rude moments."

"Then is marriage that distasteful to you?" Frigga asked, frowning slightly.

"I'm thinking of everyone's safety." There. That was a safe enough reason. "Loki has collected a number of enemies. As have I. Rose is safer without the connection to him, with all of the people here on alert."

"How is that any way to live?" Frigga asked gently. "She is still an infant, true. But as she grows, she will need companionship. She will need to learn from others."

All Natasha knew of other girls had been learned in the Red Room. That hardly would be the same situation for Rose. She would never wish that on her daughter, but at the same time, the girl had to be _safe._ She had to be protected, had to be able to grow up without knives and guns pointed at her simply because of who her parents were.

"It was selfish to have her," Natasha said without thinking. "I was soft when I made the decision to keep her."

Frigga looked at her startled. "You don't have that many enemies..."

"We do. Of course we do, given what we do for a living. Children, lovers, relationships, even friends... It's all a risk. It's dangerous." She shouldn't have _wanted,_ but she couldn't help it, either. She was still human, after all. The Red Room hadn't stripped that out of her, so she still had wants and needs and dreams, even if they were ruthlessly pushed away and not acted upon.

The shock gave way to something like pity, which Natasha couldn't abide. "What else is there in life to live for, if not for others?"

"I'm making up for the wrongs I've done in my life. Didn't Thor tell you?"

"He told me of your honor. Of your dignity. That you are worthy of being a Valkyrie, if Odin were one to determine such a thing. He is proud to call you friend and companion, proud to fight beside you to aid Midgard. Whatever wrongs you may have done before, surely they have been eliminated by now."

Natasha could feel her insides shake, and she managed to suppress it. "No. I haven't yet brought my accounts to balance."

"Life cannot be strictly balanced accounts. There must be more to it, gaining joy from your family, influencing others..."

"You don't know who I was before," she said, her voice sharper than she intended. "No one does, and no one ever will. Rose will never pay for my mistakes, will never have to live the way I had to."

"Perhaps you live your life ruled by fear," Frigga commented sadly. "Just as Loki does."

Natasha startled badly, and wanted to kick herself for it. Her composure had slipped, she was losing her edge. The Red Room had been right in their concerns, and she had been wrong to ignore them. It was wrong to _want,_ to leave herself so horribly exposed this way.

"I would help you with her," Frigga continued in her same gentle tone. "But I wonder if you would even let me. You may prefer to handle everything on your own. It is so very difficult, Natasha. Closing yourself off will destroy you. Don't ignore the help offered you because you fear our intentions."

"It doesn't matter what I want anymore," she said quietly. "I got what I wanted. I'm here, she's here. Now I have to think about her. I have to think about the others."

"They can protect themselves," Frigga reminded her gently.

"Did Thor tell you my code name? I'm the Black Widow. That's who I am. I have a job I need to do. I can't— I shouldn't— It doesn't matter what I want," she said, voice faltering and breaking as Rose snuffled in her sleep. Natasha blinked rapidly to keep tears from forming. "That's who I am," she whispered, staring at Rose. She could feel Frigga's pity like a tangible thing, and it burned. "That's who I have to be."

"But that's not all of who you are."

"It should be."

Frigga shifted Rose to lie across her chest, her head resting on Frigga's shoulder. That allowed her to pull Natasha close with one arm. "I cannot imagine your crimes being so horrible as to demand that kind of sacrifice. The pain you put yourself through will not erase them, will not ease the burden of guilt. Guilt will never let you atone, Natasha. The guilt will devour you whole, will feel the fears that bind ever tighter. I know this kind of pain, Natasha, just as I know Loki will never seek atonement this way. I love my son, even as I condemn the actions he has taken."

"You're his mother," Natasha said, her breath hitching in her chest.

"Yes. Love is not blind, Natasha. It is given as a gift."

"Love is for children."

"You were a child once," Frigga pointed out gently. "And now you have a child."

Natasha curled into Frigga despite the shame burning inside of her and began to sob. She clutched at the queen almost desperately, and Frigga held on tightly. It was terrifying, the endless possibilities for Rose's future and all the dangers inherent in the world. Too many things to plan for. Too many things to be afraid of. How did people do this? How did they open themselves up to this kind of terror and still go to sleep at night? How did they not go insane from it all?

"It will be all right, Natasha," Frigga murmured gently. She stroked Natasha's back much in the same way she did for Rose. "We will all make sure that it is so."

Looking up at Frigga with tears in her eyes, Natasha was almost afraid to believe her. She wanted to. She wanted to _so much,_ but was still haunted by the reminders of what happened when she wanted too much.

"Too much can go wrong," she said, not sure how she could even explain it. It was the future, Rose, herself, Loki, the others... There was too much responsibility that she had always carried on her shoulders, and she knew that it would break anyone else. She had carried it without complaint, because it was her burden to bear, her past debts to repay. It wasn't fair to ask anyone else to help her do it.

"I know," Frigga said softly. Maybe she did know, maybe she could intuit the rest. "Learn from my mistakes, Natasha. Don't do this alone. Don't do what we did."

There was nothing else to do but try. She had already come too far to back down now.

***

"Do I need to hit Loki to have him do the right thing?"

Natasha looked up as Steve came into the common room. Rose liked the daylight coming in through the glass wall, and was comfortably resting in the swing Jane had picked out, complete with its array of stars hanging down from the top arch. She was sleeping again, and Natasha had nearly been nodding off herself.

"What are you talking about?" she asked, sitting up straighter on the couch.

"Not that I expected anything fancy, in case Asgard wouldn't do anything about it, but I at least thought you'd get married."

"Oh, that. I already refused him a few times." Natasha smothered a yawn and managed not to roll her eyes at Steve's aggrieved expression. "Having both parents married to each other is not a prerequisite for raising a child."

"I know that. It happened back in the thirties, too, you know. But I thought you would do it, if only to keep him around."

"Maybe I don't always want him around."

"Wait... All this time I thought you loved him."

Natasha shook her head. "I suppose Tony gave everyone that idea, but no."

Steve sighed. "I suppose I thought if the two of you were together, it had to be because of love. Because you didn't want the rest of us upset about it." He plopped down on the couch next to her. "What are you going to do about Loki, then?"

"Why? Is he bothering anyone here?"

"Well, no, but..."

"Then don't worry about it, Steve."

"I don't worry about Rose. Any one of us here will go to bat for her, you know that. I worry about _you."_

That startled Natasha. "Me? Why me?"

"How often do you even ask us for help with anything? How often do you let us in? You might think it's protecting us or protecting her, but how much of it is really helping?" Steve asked pointedly.

"Of course it's helping. This is silly. You don't have to worry about me."

"Yes, I do. You're my friend, Natasha. You're so sad when you don't think anyone's looking at you." He gave her a sad smile when she startled at the words. "You don't think I recognize that look on your face? Don't you think I get the same way sometimes?" He took her hand in his and squeezed. "When you've lost people you care about, you try to protect the ones you've got left. You try to do the right thing by them, even if it doesn't make any sense, because you're so afraid of losing them."

Natasha looked at him with large eyes, raw emotion visible there. "Steve..."

"It's okay. I get it. You're more like a soldier than you think."

"I'm a spy, not a soldier."

"They're not mutually exclusive, you know. The difference is, you know when to throw out orders that make no sense, and most soldiers just follow them to the letter. The thing of it is, you're more like the guys I've worked with on elite ops. You're tightly disciplined, and you've been through all kinds of hell I'll never know. If I told you I'd watch over Rose right now, let you go anywhere or do anything, what would you do?"

"I don't know," she replied, not seeing where he was going with the non sequitur. Damn, she was soft and slow. "Sleep, probably."

"Definitely important. But aren't there places you want to go to, people to see?"

"No. Rose is my priority now."

"Yeah. I just worry you're going to lose yourself while protecting her."

There wasn't much to lose. Which really would have worried Steve if she said such a thing, so she remained silent.

Steve sighed. "Go on, go take a nap. I'll watch over her, and I'll get you as soon as she needs you. You need to take care of yourself, too." He gave her a swift hug to soften the sting of his words. "And if you prepare a few bottles, we can even feed her while you rest up a bit more. You don't have to run yourself so ragged."

"What do you know about babies, Steve?" she asked, a slight twist to her lips.

"Whatever I've been reading these past few months," he admitted. "Bruce and Tony have been even worse, you know. Clint seems so easy going, but I think he just hides it better than the rest of us."

"You're a good guy, Steve," Natasha said with a soft smile. Too bad she didn't think she deserved someone like him. And she knew Clint deserved better than someone like her.

"We've all got moments," he replied with a grin. "Go on, I'll keep watch. I got your back, Natasha. You don't have to worry about her."

She trusted him, and he only said what he meant. With a nod, she went to her suite to nap for a bit. In spite of thinking she would be more worried about the separation from Rose, she instantly fell asleep.

***  
***


	5. Confidences

Sleep definitely helped her to feel better. She could think more clearly, and her frustration tolerance was higher. Her emotions didn't seem to be simmering so close to the surface, and the menfolk didn't look at her as if she was about to explode if they looked at her the wrong way. Not that it was a bad thing if they did, but it was getting annoying.

Tony had devoted an entire level of the Tower to clinics. True, the Avengers got to see the medical personnel at any time and in the medical suite near the residential levels, but there were internal medicine, pediatrics, women's health and minor surgical procedures services available for Stark Industries and the public as well. It was wonderful for his staff, a great PR move, and helped to hide Natasha's needs. The pediatrician had come up the day before, right before Steve had found her. Rose was doing well, and resembled an average one month old baby girl. Natasha had been relieved, but in her exhaustion had still felt as though something could go wrong.

Now that she was rested, the anxiety could be examined and dealt with appropriately. It didn't control her.

Steve's idea was a sound one. Natasha had to get some rest, and these were her friends and Loki. None of them would harm her daughter, and she had to sleep sometime. Pepper had gotten her a breast pump and array of bottles, which sat unopened in a corner of Natasha's suite. It wasn't that hard to figure out, just a little awkward and frustrating in the beginning. Something else to practice, perhaps.

Loki came to observe Rose sleeping or lying in Natasha's arms. Occasionally he tried to hold the infant, though she squirmed and made burbling sounds. Alarmed though he tried not to show it, Loki handed her right back to Natasha. She was a little irritated by that, though it was hilarious when Loki tried to help change a diaper and wound up shouting in disgust. "How could this much filth exit a child this small? Disgusting! And the color! How is this considered normal? Call up that so-called doctor and have her investigate this matter immediately!"

"It's normal in human children."

"Disgusting!" Loki cried, wrinkling his nose and holding the wipes at arm's length to clean up Rose as she wailed. "Are you sure you don't wish for a nursemaid or two to assist you with these tasks? They would be duty bound to remain silent regarding the parentage and will protect her with their lives."

It was tempting, Natasha wasn't about to lie about that. But this was _her_ daughter, and she was going to do whatever it took to be her mother and protect her.

Relating the story to Pepper and Jane in the kitchen later led all three to laugh. "I'm so glad Darcy had me take a break from the lab," Jane said, smothering her laughter in an attempt to be serious again. "I have a sister ten years older than me. Want me to ask her to stop by to give you some pointers?" she offered.

Jane's older sister Susan had three children, the youngest of which just turned three. Susan was about Jane's height, with brown hair she tended to pull back into a tight ponytail. After three children, her body was rounded just about everywhere. "I did lose the baby weight all three times, believe it or not," she said cheerfully as her son went careening down the hall, yelling delightedly at the top of his lungs.

"Aren't you concerned for him at all?" Natasha asked dubiously.

"Oh, he'll be fine. Once he's crying in pain or terror, then I'll hunt him down," Susan said easily, waving off her concerns. "Jonas needs to play and explore the world."

"It's not safe."

Susan narrowed her eyes slightly, assessing Natasha. "Look, I understand you're a new mom and everything. Jane explained that part. And you're a superhero, so you see a lot of bad stuff. But you have to keep in mind that your view of the world? Completely skewed. _Completely._ The real world isn't all monsters and aliens and whatnot. I'm a fifth grade teacher in the public school system. I can tell you all about _those_ monsters if you like, and I can tell you about my demon children. _That_ is what the real world is usually like. The rest of us? Your daughter? Not superheroes."

"That's exactly the problem," Natasha insisted. "Rose can't protect herself if any of our enemies find out about her..."

"Natasha, you also live in New York City. Eleven million people live on this island alone, and how many of them do you think might be a predator of some kind?" At that, Natasha blanched; she knew full well what ordinary humans were capable of. "No, I don't mention that to freak you out!" Susan cried, holding up her hands. "If you think about all this stuff, you'll drive yourself insane. And trust me, kids do that well enough on their own, you don't need to add to the mess."

"So how do you do it? _Why_ do you do it?"

"Why did you have Rose?"

"I never thought I could have children before. And then..."

Susan's expression softened a bit. "The possibility of it. Seems amazing and wonderful until you're living it, huh?"

"How could you do it three times, though?"

"Clearly because I'm nuts," Susan said cheerfully. "Jane has her stars, I have thirty-five to forty fifth graders every year, plus three little monsters of my very own. Jane only sees them in short bursts, so she gets the pretty good parts. I'm the one that has to stay up at night when one of them is sick or vomited everywhere, or if there's a skinned knee, or God forbid, Sarah broke an arm falling out of a tree two summers ago."

Natasha saw the way she spoke about them, the way her face lit up. "You'd do it all over again, though. Every moment of it."

"Of course. Henry –oh, that's my husband, by the way—says I'm utterly crazy, but so's he, so we fit. It's a special kind of crazy hell we signed ourselves up for, but it's also a wonderful kind of crazy hell."

Natasha knew about hell, and knew that it was nothing at all like the life that Susan lived every day. "What are your children like, then?"

"Sarah's eleven, she's my oldest. Piano lessons, ballet classes, we're such yuppies. But she loves it, and as hectic as ushering her to practice can be, we're so proud of her. Then there's Mitchell, he's seven and a half, wishing he's old enough to start karate at the Y. They start at eight. He's such a boy, running and climbing everywhere, like the world is his jungle gym. It was his idea to climb the tree in the park that Sarah fell out of. And you've met Jonas. He takes after Mitchell."

Susan grinned at Natasha. "They make me happy. Even when I'm screaming at them, feeling like I could throw something across the room. I love my kids. I have to trust that I'm raising them right, that they'll be good people when I'm done with them."

"How do you know?"

Now Susan let out a breath. "I suppose I don't know for sure. But if they're tested, if they wind up okay as adults, I'll have done my job right."

"It's a long time before you get any payoff."

"Eh, such is life."

Natasha eyed Susan closely. "That's a very calm way to go about your life, Susan."

"Some things, I will never be able to get control over." Susan shrugged. "I used to be a nervous wreck all the time, paralyzed by everything. It was..." Her voice trailed off as she thought. "I'd say it got worse in college, but it was always there. And I had a complete breakdown after I got married. Got into therapy, was on meds for a little over a year to help get my head on straight. At that point, I got off the meds and stayed in therapy. That was _so_ helpful when I got pregnant with Sarah. I thought I was going to have a nervous breakdown again. Some days are worse than others. Today's an awesome day, as you can tell. Some days are awful, and I want to crawl into a hole somewhere and let the entire world pass me by."

Natasha let out a slow breath. "So it's not just me," she murmured, almost to herself.

"Nope," Susan said with a smile. "Though I have to admit, knowing you feel this way makes me feel a little bit better."

Frowning, Natasha looked at her, the emotionless mask descending. "Why?"

"Because of the job you do, you know? The whole saving the world thing. It's good to know you're still human like the rest of us. You worry about the same stuff. Magnitude is a bit off, but it's the same stuff overall."

"How does that make you feel better?"

"If you weren't like us, someone all power hungry or full of themselves, you might not stick with the job when it gets hard. But you worry about the little things that I do. The same stuff matters to you about your daughter. You're a real person, and that means the rest of us matter to you, too." Susan took a breath and noticed Natasha's blank expression. "That didn't come out right, did it?"

"I think I know what you're trying to say."

"Oh, good," Susan said, relieved. "I run off the mouth a bit when I get nervous, and I sometimes say really stupid things. Filter off, you know?"

"I'm learning about that."

Susan grinned and looked over into the basinet again. "They're just amazing, and babies grow so fast. Treasure every second you're with her, even if you're screaming your head off because she did something dangerous or stupid. Or both. Someday you'll laugh about it." She was about to open her mouth to say something else when she paused. "Wait. It's really quiet."

"Yes. So?"

"You'll learn. Silence around a toddler is _suspicious."_

Jonas, it turned out, had found Steve's paints that he had forgotten in the sunroom. He then had proceeded to paint all over the walls, windows and floors, with liberal splashes all over himself as well. Natasha got a chance to see Susan's yelling in full force, as well as Jonas' breaking down into tears and wails as he was sent to the corner for a time out he didn't want to take.

"And you did this three times," Natasha murmured as Susan kept an eye on her watch.

"Yup. I told you I was crazy."

"I don't think I would want to do that two more times."

Susan shrugged. "Not everyone's a kid person. Or maybe it's the baby stage that's the issue. Or toddlers. Lord, save me from the preschool stage of the game. Give me that bratty school age child, and I can deal with it. But –Jonas, _no,_ face the wall! You're still on time out!—it's worth it in the end, really. When they smile at you and tell you they love you. When they say you're awesome. When they do something sweet just because they can tell you're having a bad day. When they come over for a hug just because, not because they wanted something or are begging for a new toy, but just because they wanted to give you a hug." She grinned hugely at Natasha, beaming at the thought of her children doing these things. _"That_ is when I think it's all worth it, all the hassle and sacrifice and icky vomit that I have to clean up off the bathroom floor at two a.m. _That's_ why you do it, not because you want to give time outs."

Natasha watched Susan take Jonas off time out, talk him through it and then give him a hug before letting him play. Discipline in the Red Room had been abuse, and it was a stark contrast to what she was watching.

Maybe it wouldn't be so bad to be a parent after all.

Susan coached her through the use of the pump, though she also admitted to not sticking with it very long after returning to work. "I only got an ounce or two out at a time, and Sarah wanted four or five with a feeding. So I had to supplement with formula. It's not bad if you do, sometimes it just doesn't work out. I mean, an ounce and a half in thirty minutes just sucks. My friend Beth got four or five in the same amount of time, the milk cow, and was offering to share with me. It was stupid, but I said no. She froze all the extra. If it turns out you're like her, I'll have her give you a call about how to do all that stuff. Me, I hated the pump and how it just didn't work. But look, Jonas is running around all over the place, right? So using formula does _not_ make you a failure, let me tell you that right off the bat."

It was so rapid fire, Natasha had to believe that Susan was telling the truth about her view of things. Then again, it also looked like Susan was the kind of woman that couldn't be taciturn about _anything._

"And where's her daddy, anyway?" Susan asked at one point that afternoon as she was packing up Jonas' things to leave. "When you need a nap or some time for a long soak in a bubble bath, let him do some of the work."

Natasha thought about Loki and let out a sigh. "It's complicated."

"Superhero thing, huh?" Susan asked sympathetically. "Jane has to pick and choose what she tells me, because of security clearance. But I can read between the lines. It's hard on her, loving somebody from another planet that goes around and saves the world. At least she can dive right back into her research as a distraction, and she has Darcy to help take care of the day to day stuff. You've met Darcy?"

"Briefly."

"She's wonderful for Jane. You should all hang out, have some girl time and let Rose's father spend some quality time with her. It might feel like your chest will explode, but if you time it just right and can endure a little discomfort, you should be okay."

Compared to the Red Room's tactics, this kind of discomfort was nothing. But Natasha didn't say so, and merely nodded to indicate she was absorbing Susan's opinion.

"Okay. I think I have everything. If not, let Jane know and she can bring it with her the next time she stops by for a visit. She does that every couple of months when I harass her enough. The science thing, you know. Or you can call me to come out and pick up his stuff or just send it to us." She gave Natasha a bright and friendly smile, something that she wasn't used to seeing directed at _her_ and not a cover identity. "If you have any questions, just ask. Really. It's tough being a new mom, and most of the doctors and advice columns make it sound like it's all wine and roses instead of diapers full of pee and poop, you know? The real world is much messier than the advice columns make you think it is."

"Isn't it always that way?" Natasha asked dryly.

Susan laughed, a bright and cheerful sound. "Definitely." She gathered her bags and held Jonas' hand as they stepped into the elevator. "Take care, Natasha. Lovely to meet you. And apologize to Mr. Rogers again when he gets back, okay? If we need to replace any of the paints..."

"It's okay. We'll take care of that. It's just paint."

She gave her son a pointed look, but Jonas just looked up at Natasha with a grin. "It's fun. Mommy won't let me paint at home."

"Because you do _that,"_ Susan jumped in, saving Natasha from making a reply. "I still can't trust you with a regular cup of juice! How many of the stains on the carpet are yours, Jonas?"

The elevator doors slid closed as Jonas shrugged, and Natasha found herself smiling at the sight of him and Susan together. That normalcy was what she tried to preserve as she balanced her ledger. There were innocents in the world, still. They could wake up and be certain there was goodness and justice, not the evil that lurked in darker corners, just waiting to pounce.

But if Susan could be a parent, struggling with anxiety and a job and her children, perhaps Natasha could, too. She didn't do it alone, so as much as it felt unnatural, Natasha would have to follow her lead and let others help, too.

***

To his credit, Loki jumped at the chance to spend time with Rose and do more of the little things parents had to do with infants. Though he would have preferred to foist the diaper changing back on her, he vowed that he would do so if necessary while Natasha was getting a manicure with Pepper. "She's a little hungry, if you want to try feeding her," Natasha offered, putting on her leather jacket.

He warmed the bottle just as Natasha had told him to do, and even sat in her rocking chair. While he sat a little stiffly, he did hold her just fine and offered the bottle according to direction. It had chafed him to have to be told such things, but he agreed that he had no experience with such things and Natasha did.

Rose wasn't having it.

She spit out the nipple, and Loki tried to push it back into her mouth. "This is your mother's milk, Rose," he told her, irritation rising. "If you're hungry, you should drink it. She won't be here for your meals this afternoon."

Her lips remained shut despite Loki's prodding, and finally she began to wail. Loki used the opportunity to put the nipple inside, but Rose spit it out and kept wailing, her arms flailing and her tiny fist catching Loki in the chest and arms.

Loki shouted in frustration, which only made Rose cry harder. _"What is the matter with you, child?!"_ he yelled. Thankfully, he didn't shake her.

Lips pursed together in displeasure, Natasha took Rose out of his arms and cradled her against her chest. The baby still wailed, but Natasha shushed her and rubbed her back gently. It took only a minute for the screams to die down into sobs as she clung to her mother desperately.

"I guess she only wants me right now," Natasha murmured, still stroking Rose's back.

"She hates me."

"She doesn't hate you. She's a _baby._ Babies don't hate."

"She only smiles at me when I change her soiled linens."

"It's gas," Natasha corrected, which only made Loki glower at her.

"My own child hates me," Loki snarled glaring at her. "What have you done?"

"What have I done? I carried her inside me for nine months and gave birth to her. I feed her and change her and rock her without complaint. _I'm her mother._ Babies need their mothers, Loki. She doesn't hate you. She just wants me all the time right now."

Loki turned away, not really mollified but not willing to press the point any longer. "My own child hates me," he said quietly. "My only blood, and she cannot stand me."

Natasha blew out a tired breath. "Wait until she's older. I don't think you and babies get along very well."

He glared at her, but didn't disagree. "How are you so skilled at it, then?"

 _I'm terrified I'm doing the wrong thing. I read everything in sight and talk to everyone, and I still don't know if I'm doing the right thing,_ she thought. But she didn't say it aloud.

"I don't have a choice in that part. I chose to have her, and now I have to see it through."

Something in his expression softened. "You are tired."

"Damn straight."

"You go with Ms. Potts," he said after pushing out a breath and holding his arms out. "She and I must come to an understanding. I am her father."

"Gentle, Loki," Natasha cautioned, easing Rose back into his arms. Her misgivings were evident, and he set his jaw stubbornly. "She's a baby. She doesn't know anything yet. She only learns what we teach her."

Rose hiccupped and flailed her little arms. Loki looked down at her, the bottle clutched in a white knuckled grip. "I'm going to be a good father, Natasha. I will not harm her."

"I can see that," she said, though she had her doubts. Oh, he would never do anything deliberate to harm her. But Loki was unstable, and chaos followed in his wake. How else could Rose even come into being?

"You still appear worried."

"This is the first time I'm leaving her."

"I'm her _father."_ Loki said tightly.

"I know that. I'm not worried about _her,"_ she said, not entirely lying. The others would help and wouldn't allow Loki to do anything stupid. "I'm worried about _me._ I feel like I should still be here. Getting my nails done isn't important. I should be here with her."

Loki blinked in surprise and his entire body relaxed a bit. "Oh." He seemed almost chastised by her words. "You must care for yourself more. You're tired, else you would not reveal such things to me."

Natasha blew out a breath and scrubbed at her face tiredly. "We agreed to be honest with each other for Rose's sake," she pointed out.

"That doesn't mean you care for me in such a way that you would show me your true intentions. You would reveal all I need to know to care for Rose in your absence, but our agreement had not included _your_ wellbeing," he said, and there was that lost note to his voice again, the same one she'd pounced on when she accused him of wanting friends of his own.

"You told me before that I couldn't trust you. Are you changing your mind?"

He shook his head, but he couldn't meet her eyes any longer. "You are the mother of my child and offered yourself to me as a balm. I simply do not wish you harmed."

She was too mentally tired to really analyze that comment. It was revealing too much of himself, a crack in his heartless façade. _I like broken things,_ she had told Clint, and perhaps he was the same way. Her friends would say she wasn't broken, but Natasha knew better. She had just repaired herself enough so that all the cracks and empty spaces wouldn't show as easily.

"Go," Loki murmured when he saw her hesitate. "Rose and I will be fine." He looked down at Rose, who was chewing on her fist. His expression was vulnerable, a mixture of fear and love and anxiety. She knew that look.

"All right. It's only a few hours, and I'll be right back."

"We'll be here."

***

It felt strange to leave Loki to change and feed Rose. He wanted to be involved, wanted to craft a little family out of this horrendous mistake. She had perpetuated it, so she was just as much at fault as he was.

Loki was in the rocking chair, a sleeping Rose balanced on his chest and positioned so that her arms were around his neck and her head was on his shoulder. He was holding one of her fuzzy blankets over her legs and lower half, his hand splayed wide across her back to hold her steady. There was soft music playing, something soothing and symphonic she didn't recognize. He looked up at Natasha when she came into the suite, a slight smile on his face. "We came to an understanding, see?"

"I see that," Natasha murmured, voice a little husky. "How did it go?"

"She was upset at first, you saw that." He waited for Natasha to nod before continuing in that same lulling voice. "So I spoke to her. I may have sung a calming _galdr_ for us both," he admitted. "I... It may be cheating," he said, his voice catching slightly, "but I cannot actually cast magic to influence another's mind. The spell would not actually form, but the words themselves are calming. Then we could abide each other."

Natasha approached and let her fingers brush across the fine red hair on the back of Rose's head, then brought her fingers to Loki's cheek. "It's not cheating. I think any parent would wish for a spell like that."

He wanted to be a father. He wanted a family. She could see it in how he held Rose, how he held back his biting comments around Natasha, how he tried _so hard_ to curb the chaos inherent in his being. He would crack someday after winding himself too tightly, and she would likely be the one to clean up the mess.

"Why don't you want the larger suite?" he asked, tilting his head slightly so that her palm could brush against his cheek.

There was something more here, something she wasn't catching. She was losing her edge, wasn't she? The baby had made her mind as soft as her body, and she would have to train hard to recapture her prior self.

But her prior self had felt broken and lost sometimes. Lonely. It made her prey on Loki, as ridiculous as that sounded, and here they were. The parts of her that made friends before had felt like a mask, who she thought she was supposed to be rather than the core self. That one was hidden behind layers, only glimpses of her peeking out when it was safe or she was too rattled to hide her.

It was tiring and sometimes tiresome.

"I like having her close," Natasha murmured. "She won't be a baby forever."

"You would not have other children."

Something hitched in his voice, something painful. Natasha turned to look at Loki, really _look_ and think about it.

"I don't know if I can," she hedged.

Loki looked disappointed. "It was a restoration spell, Natasha."

She let her thumb brush the corner of his mouth. "Why do you want me to move?"

"You have not invited me back to your bed."

"I can't—"

"To sleep," he clarified softly. "We have not shared sleeping time since the second week after her birth."

Natasha blinked. "You kept track of how long it's been? You miss that?"

"I came to value that time," he told her softly.

He was being honest. He was flaying himself open for her, maybe because she was too exhausted to cover herself up properly and he could see into her.

"Rose still wakes up in the middle of the night. Two, three, four times sometimes. You didn't like the noise."

"You do it alone."

"You haven't the equipment," Natasha pointed out dryly.

"You could prepare a bottle," he offered gently. "I could take one of the feedings."

She stroked the corner of his mouth with her thumb, considering it. Natasha was used to keeping secrets close, of hoarding them like a dragon with gold and jewels. She wasn't used to allowing others in; Rose's birth let her see just how far she held her friends, even as she trusted them and would always rely on them. Loki wasn't a friend, but was some strange category that didn't fit labels. She didn't trust him, not exactly, and didn't love him. But they had an odd rapport, and neither wanted to harm the other. They both had Rose's best interest in mind. That counted for _something._

"We could try it, see if it works," Natasha offered, just as gently.

"Frigga has been visiting," Loki murmured, looking at Natasha intently. "I have tried to be kinder to her."

"For my sake," Natasha guessed.

"And for Rose. Frigga was good to me," Loki admitted painfully. "I believe she truly cared for me despite my origins."

"I think she would enjoy giving parenting advice," Natasha replied with a smile.

Loki laughed softly, making Rose shift a little on his chest. "Aye, she would," he said with a fond grin. "Sound advice and improbable tales to make me feel better about my incompetence as a parent."

"What was she like as a mother?"

"Kind. Very gentle and patient. Generous as a teacher," he added, looking up with that fond smile still on his face. "She taught me magic, and was tolerant with mistakes and stern with deliberate errors."

"Deliberate errors?"

"I did not always wish to study," Loki admitted ruefully.

"You? Skip out on work? No," she teased.

Loki laughed again, and Natasha could imagine him as a carefree boy, eager to learn and please others. How heartbroken Frigga must have been when he betrayed the throne and tried to kill Thor.

"And you? Were you able to slip your studies?"

Natasha's expression remained fixed in place, and she could see that Loki caught it. "No. I couldn't do that. There would be punishments if I did."

"I take it these punishments were not pleasant."

"You're aware that I was trained from a very young age," she began, no inflection in her tone. At his sharp nod, Natasha forced herself to give a nonchalant shrug. "Not all of the girls survived the training. I made sure I did."

"As in, they fell ill or were injured?" he asked, clearly not understanding what she was trying not to say.

"As in, they were killed for failure."

Loki looked at her with a stunned expression. "Even as a child?"

"Shape us young, and then as we grow, we won't question why we have to do the things that they tell us to do."

"Obviously, you questioned."

"I was smart about it, so I survived. Too many didn't."

"So the events I learned of, the ones I tried to hurt you with on the helicarrier..."

"No, some of those were really mine. I wasn't always in control of my actions, but for some of those, I really was."

"And you would still work in the service of liars and killers."

Natasha managed not to sigh at his quiet words. "I meant what I said... There aren't many outlets for these skill sets. I might lie or kill now, but it's in service to a greater good. It's a way to undo the damage I did as a child."

"You didn't know any better."

"Still my crimes to atone for. They had plenty of their own."

"Had?"

She quirked a smile at his curiosity. "I may have burned down their holdings. With them all trapped inside the buildings."

Now his laughter was loud and approving, waking Rose. She mewled in protest, and Natasha dropped her hand to cradle her daughter's head. "Sh," she crooned softly. "The Red Room doesn't exist anymore, Solnyshko."

Natasha smirked at Loki's attempts to copy her pronunciation. "It means 'little sun'," she explained softly. "Rosie seemed too infantile."

"She _is_ an infant."

"She's also the daughter of an assassin and the would-be conqueror of two realms," Natasha pointed out. Loki shot her a fierce grin, unrepentant in the slightest for the machinations he had.

"I like that," he told her, fingers soothing Rose's back. "Solnyshko," he tried to repeat, syllables slurring in all the wrong places. "Ah. I may just call her Lina."

"It is her name..."

"Or Leika, if we're choosing something different." At her blank look, he laughed again. "It means trickster."

Natasha swatted him on the arm. "Don't get any ideas. She's a baby."

"She will be as fierce as her mother," Loki murmured, "and twice as devious."

"And probably magical." She shrugged at his startled expression. "Well, we don't know if it's an inherited trait, right? She could be magical, and you would have to teach her how to use that magic responsibly."

Loki appeared pleasantly surprised by that. It made him look almost sweet. Perhaps that was why she impulsively told him to put Rose into the bassinet and climb into bed with her. Perhaps that was why he accepted. It felt good to have his arms around her, to have a heart beat steadily beneath her ear. The room didn't seem so quiet any longer, and he stroked her gently as they lay there in bed together.

"My suite has become lonely," he admitted after a while. "I can no longer abide by silence. It would indeed drive me mad."

"If you aren't already," Natasha teased.

He didn't even bristle, but seriously considered the comment. "Perhaps I am. Perhaps I am not. Madness sometimes is protective."

"Emptiness can be, too," Natasha replied without thinking.

"Isn't that a form of madness?"

Natasha paused, not mentally ready to have a conversation like this. "I think it can be," she said finally. "Either way, it's a means to cope."

They both had been traumatized, hadn't they? It was in different ways, she as a child and he as an adult. In some ways they were both alike, and in others so vastly different.

"We'll teach her better ways," Loki promised, arms tightening around her. "She'll be better than the both of us."

***  
***


	6. Stories

"Loki seems to be doing all right with Rose," Steve commented when Natasha joined the others in the gym. Doing yoga alone in her suite wasn't as fulfilling as working with the others, though she was somewhat deconditioned from months without the hard training she had been used to.

"He's getting used to her. It probably helps that she's not quite as young as before."

"Six weeks, right?" Bruce asked, not stopping from his own yoga routine.

"Yes," she confirmed as she took off her shoes and put her towel over them. Her own six week checkup was in a few days, and she felt well enough to be cleared for all of her usual activities. That usually included sex, but she currently had zero interest in using her body in sexual ways.

"Now, she's growing like a human baby, right?" Sam asked beneath the barbell he was lifting. Steve was spotting him, and alongside them Clint was working with free weights. Tony was nowhere to be seen, and Carol was doing stretches near Bruce.

"So far," Natasha said, joining Bruce and Carol in the area of the gym they were working in. "There doesn't seem to be any difference in her growth pattern just because she's half alien, and the pediatrician's run several ultrasounds by now."

"You don't even really notice the blue tinge to her skin," Carol commented. "Well, until I pick her up, and then the blue in my costume just brings it right out."

"We'll pretend your outfit's glowing," Steve called out.

"Your outfit's just as blue," she snarked back.

"I haven't worn it while trying to hold her."

"Just your old man threads," Sam commented as he racked the barbell. He laughed when Steve swatted his head. "The leather jacket's fine, but all that plaid? You should've let us update your wardrobe."

"There's nothing wrong with my clothes!"

"Sure. For a ninety-five year old man," Clint joined in, grinning.

"Is this attack the Captain day?" Steve asked, grinning at the good natured ribbing.

"Just _that_ Captain!" Carol replied.

Natasha had missed this, and didn't even drop her fond smile when Bruce looked in her direction. "Hey, I'm sure you'll be back out in the field in no time."

"It's all right. I'm used to hard work. I'll get back into more rigorous training once I'm cleared for it," Natasha assured him.

Carol eyed her split and then how far she could bend over her leg. "Ye-ah, I don't think you'll need that long to get back into action," she drawled. "Damn, that's flexible."

"I can do yoga and free weights, so that's what I've been doing," Natasha replied with a shrug, still holding her ankle. Her chest was pressed right against her right knee, her left leg stretched completely out behind her. "My doctor thought serious sparring would be too much for me."

"Considering how acrobatic you are?" Carol replied, shaking her head. "I've seen the video and I can believe it. I mean, six weeks out from delivery and you don't look like you've had a baby at all. I haven't had a baby and I can't do a full front split like that."

"Don't feel bad, I've been training since I was nearly six years old."

Natasha could almost feel Clint's gape and stare. She didn't allude to the Red Room if she could help it. Ever. He didn't even know the details, but he knew many Bad Things had happened if she ever failed her training or her missions. He knew that various kinds of memory modification, personality overlays and heavy duty drugs were used to keep the girls of the Red Room compliant with their masters.

"So you meant it in India," Bruce commented. "When you said you started that young?"

"Yes," Natasha agreed, shifting her pose so that her left leg was in front of her and her right was behind her. "Innocuous things at first, then deadlier."

Steve put down the barbell he was about to lift. "You okay with mentioning it?" he asked, brows knit in concern.

Moving to sit in the lotus position, Natasha thought about it. She weighed her past against his concern, against the others' concern and curiosity. "Some of it," she decided finally. "It's level nine or ten clearance, most of it, and would be part of the redacted portions of my personnel file if you ever tried to find it. But some of it I might be willing to talk about." She let out a slow breath. "If only because I want you to stop me from potentially doing any of those things with Rose."

"Somehow, I don't think you'd torture your own daughter," Clint commented, moving to sit nearby. "And you'd never allow anyone else to."

"I'd slit their throats," Natasha replied immediately.

"And that's not creepy at all," Bruce commented wryly. But he didn't edge away from her, didn't shift his posture or facial expression.

"Spy parenting," Sam replied, plopping down next to Clint and waving Steve over with an exaggerated arm motion. "C'mon, old man. Join the coffee clutch."

They all sat in a rough circle, Natasha seated between Bruce and Clint. Still, it didn't feel like she was being singled out to talk, like she was being judged and found wanting because of her past in the Red Room.

She _wanted_ to tell them about it, she realized suddenly. She _wanted_ them to know why she was so hesitant to trust, why emotions were frightening, why she always had to push herself so hard. If they knew about that, if they knew her secret self buried beneath her covers, they could help her. They could keep her safe, keep Rose safe, help her balance her ledger.

They didn't need to know details, like the weight of the Makarov in her palm at age seven, the look on the face of the first kill she made with it. They didn't need to know how she hollowed herself out to survive, how the mask developed or why. But she told them how the girls all competed to be the best, because that was how they would be fed and clothed and kept warm at night. The losers of contests were punished with absence of these things, and they were all forced to compete for limited resources. She told them how the coiling fear in her gut was a familiar feeling throughout her lifetime, that it kept her sharp and aware of her surroundings. It saved her from a knife in the gut at age nine. It kept her alert when in isolation for 72 hours after breaking an instructor's arm. She told them about the tests out in the field, about crafting layers of truth around herself before hitting puberty because it kept her alive.

And they listened, questioned to clarify, and didn't judge. There was no pity when they looked at her, no edging away or thinking she was horrible. They didn't question her need for a ledger, but did tell her it was unnecessary.

Natasha felt just as exhausted as if she had trained hard for hours, but she also felt lighter. Her chest wasn't so tight, as if her spirit wanted to stretch beyond the reach of her bones and split her skin. The Red Room didn't weigh her down so heavily, didn't prey on her as much. Most of the time she didn't think about that, but Rose's birth had forced her to come to grips with how she was raised. She had no positive role models, after all, only negative ones, though Carol pointed out it was just important to have those, too. "You know what _not_ to do, and there will be plenty of people hanging around to help tell you what to do."

"Kids are resilient, you know," Bruce offered helpfully.

"And forgiving," Clint said with a half smile in her direction. "You'll be okay."

Maybe Natasha could believe it. And just maybe, she could begin to forgive herself for the past she couldn't help but have.

***

"I have been reading the research done on this realm," Loki said abruptly. He was lying on Natasha's bed, Rose sleeping on his chest calmly. He had one hand braced on her back to keep her balanced there, the other held the Starkpad he had been looking at. Natasha hadn't discussed her checkup with him, but was starting to ease into her prior exercise and sparring routine with the others.

"And?" she asked, slipping on a pair of jeans. She was freshly showered after a light session in the gym with Sam.

"There is the concept of a good enough mother."

Natasha frowned as she buttoned up the top. "I'm doing badly, aren't I?"

"On the contrary. The research indicates that there is no need to generate anxiety about reaching utter perfection when it doesn't exist. Meeting her needs as she has them, making her feel secure... that is the 'good enough' that the research discusses. That if a mother is good enough to anticipate and meet an infant's needs, they will grow well."

"Oh." Her stance visibly relaxed. "All right, then."

"But there is no concept of a good enough father," Loki continued, brows furrowed in thought. "I have looked into the research done on this realm, as Rose seems more like a human infant, and there is no research into a father's place for them."

Natasha moved to sit at the foot of her bed. Other than looking contemplative, Loki visibly didn't show emotion regarding the research. She could hear it in his voice, however. Either he was becoming more transparent with her, or she was getting enough practice in gauging others' emotions again. Perhaps both.

"I understand that mothers carry a child and feed it, provide care and comfort and sustenance," Loki said, putting the Starkpad aside. "But do fathers care so little on this realm? Do they count for nothing past conception?"

"The way research works," Natasha began carefully, "is that they ask a question and then look into it. I think they research mothers more because of the risk of postpartum depression and how that would impact development."

"Don't fathers carry the risk of depression in such a time?"

"I don't know. If they do, the risk is probably lower than that of a mother. So much more can go wrong with her physically."

Loki nodded, agreeing with that logic. "There are no guidelines in human research, then. No way to tell if I am being a good enough father."

"You're not willing to ask Frigga about that, are you?" Natasha asked wryly.

"I had nursemaids for immediate needs," Loki replied slowly. "If there were difficulties in diet or dress or a small injury, I did not go to Frigga. Certainly not to Odin."

Natasha remained silent for a moment, considering this piece of information. "What happened to your nurse, then?"

"Dismissed when I was out of small clothes. I no longer had need of her."

She could hear the odd note in his voice, and she reached out to touch his ankle. "Maybe not need, but you wanted her there."

"Frigga had to learn what treats I enjoyed or worked best after bad dreams," Loki said in a dismissive tone. "But that is such a small thing."

"But an important thing." Natasha scooted forward. "And you want to be that for Rose. You want to know those kinds of things."

"Having an infant on this realm is different than on Asgard," Loki murmured. "That realm is barred to me. I should follow Midgard's example if I am to live here."

She nodded and stroked the back of Rose's head gently. "You're good with her," she offered in a soft voice. "I think you're a good enough father."

"For now," he murmured, offering her the baby. "But when she grows and realizes who her father is..."

"This bothers you," Natasha observed, taking Rose. She was sleeping deeply enough that it didn't wake her, and she cradled her daughter in her arms. "You don't want her knowing that you attempted genocide twice."

"Once," Loki corrected. "It was not to be genocide on this realm. It was to conquer, to rule. To have a place, and I would have been far more benevolent than those the Chitauri normally answered to."

This was the first Natasha had heard of such a thing, and her gaze sharpened. "So you want to be better for her sake. Not your own."

"I would have her regard," Loki murmured, looking at their sleeping daughter. "I would have yours, as well," he added, looking up at her.

Feeling uncomfortable, Natasha rose and put Rose in the bassinet to sleep. "Mine."

"I still desire you," Loki said in a hushed tone. "Same as before."

"Loki..."

"I say this not with the intent to force your hand," he said quickly, obviously interpreting her movements as rejection. "I say this because we were going to be honest with each other. The birth of our child did not erase my regard for you."

Natasha turned and looked at Loki. Though her face was impassive, her heartbeat sped up. Loki sat up straight, his vulnerable expression in place. "I don't have any interest in that." He sucked in a breath, and she realized how that sounded. "It's not you. I have no interest in sex with _anyone_ right now. I'm too tired, too occupied with Rose, too... It's too much of a bother right now."

Loki held out his hand for her, a little uncertainly. She took it and let him draw her closer to the bed. "I will not force your hand," he repeated. "I tell you of my interest so you know it is there, should you be willing again. I have made my interest in a union known to you often enough." He shook his head when she opened her mouth to speak. "You know of my interest. If you return it, it will be there still."

She sighed and brushed her fingers across his cheek. "Maybe it won't come back, I don't know. It's not important to me right now." She looked back toward Rose. "While she's asleep, I should go use the pump." Natasha vaguely gestured toward her chest. "I can set up a bottle in advance or something."

"Or perhaps, I may relieve your discomfort?"

He flushed a little when she looked at him incredulously. "I am curious," he admitted, and gently traced her ribcage with his fingertips. "And it might be one of the few ways you would allow me to touch you again."

Aware of how much he was exposing himself to her, Natasha nodded slowly. "All right, then." She pulled off her tank top and tossed it aside, exposing her full breasts.

Loki slid his hands around to her back and gently placed his mouth over one nipple. It took a moment before he copied Rose's mouth placement, then started to suck. Natasha slid a hand around the back of his head, bracing him slightly. She looked at him expectantly when he pulled back to laugh. "It's sweet," he said, looking up at her. "I've always enjoyed sweets."

"Really?"

"There were two hundred cooks at the palace. As a boy, one of them was expressly devoted to preparing cakes and sweets. I may have disproportionately eaten most of them before dinners and festivals."

Natasha laughed along with him, and that turned into a gasp when he put his mouth back to her. Loki suckled her, gentler than Rose did, but she could feel the milk let down. He let go once that breast seemed to empty, and looked up at her with desire in his eyes. "I still hunger for you," he said, voice thick with need. Before she could answer, he moved to her other breast and began to suckle again.

She cradled his head, her breath caught in her throat as something almost like desire stirred deep in her belly. His hands spread wide across her back, holding onto her tightly but not painfully, and Natasha closed her eyes. She caressed his skull, her fingers sliding through his soft hair, her other hand sliding down the skin of his neck.

When he let go, her chest no longer aching from the fullness of milk, Loki licked his lips and looked up her. He would be satisfied with that, she realized. If she pushed him away, he would accept it and leave her alone, probably jerking himself off in private. Natasha didn't want him to leave, didn't want him feeling alone and unwanted.

"Take off your clothes," she said, a slight rasp to her voice.

"But you didn't want me to—"

"It's not about me right now."

Loki frowned slightly, but stripped himself completely bare. She could see his erection, still mostly soft. "Natasha," he began uncertainly.

"Lie down," she commanded. To her surprise, he did so quickly, only too willingly, as if he needed directions. As he settled on top of her comforter, the thought came to her that perhaps this was so. Their entire liaison had been at her initiative. He hadn't rebelled so hard against the cuffs restricting his magic. He had been a good son and prince of Asgard until he discovered his true heritage and Odin fell into the Odinsleep. Loki had done everything expected of him until that moment. If Odin had still been there to direct him, would Loki have gone off the deep end? Had he gone to excess because no one was there to rein him in?

It was a scary thought. He had no internal moral compass whatsoever if that was the case, no sense of right or wrong if not told explicitly.

His breath caught when she sat beside him on the bed and grasped his cock firmly. "Don't touch me," she told him sternly. It was a tone she imagined that a parent would take with a child, and Loki responded to it. "You can look, but don't touch."

"Natasha," he began in a strangled voice as he grasped the comforter tightly. "What are you doing?"

"Isn't it obvious?" she asked, stroking his cock slowly. "Just because I don't feel like having sex doesn't mean that you don't."

"But you don't have to," he said, voice fracturing.

"I know," she said, lips curling into a slight smile. "But you like it."

"Of course I do." His eyes fluttered shut for a moment as her palm grazed his balls. "I like your touch, Natasha."

"Because you have regard for me," she said, a sultry edge to her tone. Ah, she still had it. The ability to draw up the seductress was still there, just slumbering inside the mother overlay. She hadn't lost herself just by having a child, then. It was like adding on another cover identity, another aspect of her personality waking up.

"Yes," he murmured, opening his eyes to look at her. Loki looked at her eyes, not her bared breasts, and she could see he meant it.

"What about this realm? Do you regard this place?"

"Because you're from here?" he asked, breath hitching slightly. "Because my daughter was born here?"

"Well, do you?" She asked, sliding her fingers down the length of him and gently scratching at his perineum.

"I would protect her homeland, if that's what you're asking. I would protect you from the dangers of other realms." He groaned when she slid the foreskin back and swirled the precome across the tip of his cock without breaking eye contact. "Is this what you mean?"

"Something must matter to you, Loki. Why go on otherwise?"

"I could say power and prestige."

Natasha slid her hand down and cupped his balls. "You could. But I don't think that's entirely accurate. What's power without an audience? Who would give you prestige? Who would value your efforts?"

"It doesn't matter on this realm. They view me as monster."

"You could change that. If you wanted to. If this realm really mattered to you."

"Look at you," he gasped, lips stretched in a smile. "Offering me pleasures in exchange for safety."

Loki groaned in near-pain when she grabbed his cock and squeezed tightly. "We're having a conversation, Loki. We never talked about this before, did we?" He shook his head, and Natasha was almost stunned to realize he wasn't letting go of her comforter. He was still following the rule she set down for this encounter.

"Now," Natasha began as she let go of him. "We've never really talked about anything truly serious in the beginning. And then after I got pregnant, it was mostly about the baby and what was happening with her. But she's here now, and she's healthy, and she's going to grow up on this world."

"I'd keep it safe for her," Loki promised.

"But if anything ever happened to her. Or to me... Would you destroy it then? Would the people you don't know matter to you? When you first arrived on earth, you killed eighty people in two days. They didn't matter to you. They were a means to an end."

"Why do they matter to you?" he asked, confused.

Lack of moral compass, she realized. He really had no idea why innumerable innocents mattered, why it was more than an abstract concept. He killed so easily because they weren't real to him. They were like paper dolls, easily torn and set aside when he had no use for them.

"People matter. Lives matter." Her voice was soft, lulling. "I was trained when I was young to be a weapon. To use everything about myself to get the job done, to not care about myself as a person. It was about the mission, only the mission, getting it completed no matter the cost."

"As it should be."

"No," Natasha corrected, stroking his cock again. "Lives matter. Your own life should matter. Making a difference in the lives of others should matter. Otherwise, what's the point in living? What's the point in others looking up to you?"

Loki's grip on her comforter tightened. "I was born to lead. I was King, Natasha."

"Kingship is more than birthright," she said softly. "True kingship is earned. It's caring for the people, meeting their needs, being there when they need you."

She could almost see it when it clicked. "That's why they call him the Allfather. He was a good enough father to Asgard."

Natasha nodded and picked up the pace a little when Loki whined with need. "Do you think you could be that here? Not just protect the people because of Rose, but because they need it? Because it should be done? Because the duty to protect falls on those with the skill to do so. It's a burden, the price you pay for the power you have, but the rewards are great when it's done. You leave your mark on the world, even if no one else can see it, even if you're the only one that knows. The world will be a better place having you in it, protecting those that can't protect yourself."

"Your ledger," Loki gasped, hips jerking at her touch. "That's what you mean by wiping out your red."

She nodded, continuing to move her hand along his cock with a firmer grasp. Loki whined and writhed a bit, breath coming in short pants. "The people that turned me into a weapon never gave me a choice. And then when I could choose... I chose to prevent what happened to me from happening to others."

"You don't strike me as a victim," Loki moaned, eyes falling shut. "Those let things happen to them. You don't."

"I'll take it as a compliment."

"That was meant to be."

"So why don't you prove you can learn from your mistakes? That you can try to atone for your crimes. That you can be good enough. That you can be someone Rose is proud to call father when it's safe to."

Loki cried out when he spilled over her fist, come spurting onto his stomach. He kept his eyes shut, nearly sobbing when Natasha continued to milk his cock. "But I will fail," he said softly, finally opening his eyes to look at her. "I cannot help but fail. That kind of creature is not who I am."

Leaning forward to touch her forehead to his, Natasha sighed. "I think you can try, if you really wanted to. I think that possibility is there, hidden within you, but you're too scared to try. You're too afraid of failure, and you'd rather be a fantastic monster than fail at being good."

"Natasha..."

"You see me," she said quietly. "And I see you." She smiled sadly at his stunned expression. "We're both monsters, Loki. It's not birth that makes us so, it's the choices that we make. So you were actually Jotun and not Asgardian. That didn't invalidate everything you did or said growing up. That didn't make you a monster."

"They would see me so," he whispered. "They hunted Jotnar."

"And if they were gone, they wouldn't see you as a monster, then. They would see you as loyal to Asgard, right? Because it was just a fairy tale, just stories and faceless numbers, creatures that didn't really matter."

"Yes," he replied in a small voice.

"But that's not reality, is it? And that's not someone our daughter would be proud of. That's not someone who's earned the right to be king."

Loki shut his eyes and whimpered slightly. Natasha wondered if she was pushing him too far, if he would rebound from this angrier than ever. She had him caught in a vulnerable place and she was flaying his soul open.

"You can be better than that, Loki," she said softly. Time to sew up the wound she had created, rather than leaving him raw and empty. "You can _choose,_ you can be better than the fairy tales. Earn the respect of others. Of your daughter."

"And you?" he rasped, eyes opening.

"I'm a tough sell," she said with a wry smile. "I respect very few people in the world, and most of them are in this building."

"So you could not feel that about me."

"I didn't say that," she corrected, straightening up. Her smile turned into a smirk. "I think you might be up to the challenge of earning my respect."

That was just the way to sell it to him, apparently. He laughed and seemed utterly relaxed, more like the descriptions of the Loki that Thor had grown up with. It wasn't even awkward to clean him up or sit in her suite afterward, almost cuddling on the couch with a movie on.

In fact, it made Natasha feel as though her future with Loki could be a positive one.

***

Loki stopped short at the sight of Frigga sitting in the common area with Rose on her lap, singing softly. He knew that song, the echo of a memory tugging at him painfully. She laughed at Rose's flails, earrings bobbing and catching the light when she bent her head down to smile and grin.

 _My Queen,_ he remembered hearing as a very small boy. _This is not seemly. Let the nursemaid tend to him as is proper._

He must have moved or made a noise. Or shifting away from Rose's fist changed the angle of her peripheral vision. Frigga noticed him, turned and had the same smile on her face. "Loki. I've been playing with my granddaughter."

"You would still claim me as son, then?" he asked, feeling an odd ache in his chest.

"Of course. Come. I've sent Natasha away, if you were looking to avoid her."

"I have not been," Loki replied as he took an involuntary step forward.

Frigga brightened. "Good to hear it. She's had enough heartbreak, the poor girl."

"I assure you, her heart would not break over me."

Clucking her tongue, Frigga patted the seat beside her. Loki found himself sitting there despite his resolve not to consider her his mother. Though who was he kidding? She was his mother, would always be so, and he would forever beg for her favor.

She gave him a knowing smile as he sat stiffly beside her. "She has a difficult time accepting help from others and sees danger in every shadow."

"Because there can be."

"Oh, Loki," Frigga replied, sounding disappointed. "Rose is a darling child."

"Yes, she is," he agreed warily. Why the abrupt shift in topic?

"I hadn't expected a grandchild from you. It takes a certain amount of trust, does it not?"

"Not in the making of a child, Frigga," Loki replied icily. He didn't want to discuss his relationship with Natasha. Or lack thereof. He wasn't entirely sure what was going on between them. The challenge of it was diverting, and he found her pleasing to be sure. She was likely one of the few mortals he enjoyed spending time with, which was rather a shock considering his prior poor opinion of her.

"Don't be so deliberately obtuse," she said, an edge to her voice. It recalled her comments following poor showings at lessons. Loki immediately wanted to beg her forgiveness, and he had to literally bite his own tongue to stop himself from doing so.

"It's the _keeping_ of the child that requires trust. The raising of it." Frigga lifted Rose to her chest, cradling the cooing infant. Loki itched to snatch his daughter away from her, but stayed his hands. "You must trust that Natasha will have Rose's best interest at heart, that other caregivers will protect your child. Yours is not a trusting nature, Loki. I am pleasantly surprised."

"Those in this tower would not willingly harm an infant."

"That wouldn't stop your belief that others will harm her to get to you. You know this wouldn't stop the fear that you were being manipulated in some way."

"Why are you here?" Loki asked icily. He didn't want to concede the point. Perhaps she knew him far better than he thought.

"Perhaps Midgardians have the right way of this," Frigga murmured softly, stroking Rose's back. "Direct involvement, rather than by proxy in the earliest years. I have some allowance now as grandmother, but even this is not looked upon with favor. Only karls would do such things."

"Do you compare me to a karl?"

"They have fewer worries."

"Different ones," Loki corrected.

There was a distinct snore from Rose in the ensuing silence, and Frigga smiled. "You sounded like that as a babe."

"I certainly did not," Loki huffed.

Frigga laughed. "I had to steal into the nursery to hold you as an infant. The nurse didn't want me there to confuse you. I wasn't supposed to nurse you, after all."

Loki was very still as he looked at Frigga. This was a story he had never heard before.

"It had not been so long from the stillbirth that the milk had dried up. I ached, and you woke up as I looked in on you. I wasn't sure what to feel, exactly..."

"Because I was a monster."

"Because I lost one son and here was another. You had been left to die of exposure, and as I looked in on you, I wondered how any mother could do such a thing. You started to cry then. Perhaps wet or cold or frightened. But I put you to my breast, and you suckled strongly." Frigga turned to face Loki, and he could see the unshed tears shining in her eyes. "In that moment, you became mine. For good or ill. I wasn't sure before then if I could do it. When your father brought you home at first, I thought it a mad plan."

Loki wanted to say that Odin wasn't his father, that they were not blood. But Frigga reached out and grasped his hand tightly, the tears starting to fall. The words dried up on his tongue unspoken.

"I didn't know if I could love you, or if I was too broken to feel anything. But I did, and you clung to me so tightly, afraid to let go. You were my son then, you're my son now. I cannot abandon you, no matter how great your crimes are."

"That's why you sent me here," Loki guessed.

"You would go mad in the cells." Frigga smiled through her tears and gave a soft huff of laughter. "Even if you hated being here, hated me... You would be alive. You would be of sound mind. And perhaps you could learn to atone."

"All tales said the Jotnar were monsters and should be slain. Thor wanted to slay them all," Loki said, a warble to his voice he hadn't meant to reveal. "I was born evil, was I not? All I did was prove the stories true."

Frigga sighed and shook her head gently enough not to wake Rose. "The stories were just that. Stories. Tales to make the Aesir seem brave and noble, tales to fund the coffers in time of war. And then afterward, no one saw reason to retract them."

"You say they are a lie, then," Loki asked carefully, feeling his throat constrict.

"Jotnar are no more or less than Aesir. They are different, not our people." Frigga again touched his hand, this time squeezing it tightly. "You are Aesir, Loki. We raised you as such, and this is what you are."

"With that logic, my daughter is Midgardian."

"So she is."

Loki held himself very still. Why was he even arguing? What was he trying to prove? Of course Rose was Midgardian. That was her heritage, and this was her birth realm. He had told Natasha so not that long ago.

But then, was her other half Jotnar or Aesir?

"And right now, so are you," Frigga continued.

"What?"

"You may have been born on Jotunheim and raised on Asgard, but this is your home, Loki. This is where you will live. So you are of Midgard now." Frigga said this in a straightforward manner, as if it didn't shatter Loki in the slightest.

"Frigga…"

"So you may do things the Midgardian way, protect the mortals from themselves. The ways of Asgard would not fit well here."

"Thor is enamored with a mortal," Loki told her flatly. "You may eventually have another Midgardian grandchild."

"Oh, yes. Jane Foster. I have met her. Curious woman, questions about everything. I do believe she would learn magic if she could."

Loki stared at her. He had never asked how Frigga had known to teach him magic. He had simply assumed it was because he was too different. "Is there a way you have of sensing the potential for such a skill?"

Frigga smiled benevolently. "I know all the _ørlögs_ of the _wyrd._ I can read her _spá_ and proceed accordingly."

"Then you knew mine. You knew I would turn monstrous. I could have been stopped—"

"Your _spá_ was far too complicated, Loki," Frigga replied, shaking her head. "It is a tangled thing, changing with the frequency of your decisions. Even now, it changes as I gaze upon you. The mortals tend to be fixed in their selves, in their decisions. So Jane's _spá_ was easy to read. Yours is not."

"And Rose?"

Her smile was fond, and she cradled the baby against her. "I can see all the potential threads in her _spá_. She's a lovely girl. She will make you and Natasha proud indeed." She stroked Rose's hair. "There is a strong potential for magic in her. It can be nurtured well, and perhaps someday I could teach her the ways of the _wyrd."_

Loki wanted to say that no, he would be Rose's only teacher. But he wasn't a patient man and even now had little affinity for the _spá_ magicks or working his way through the runes. "That is strong indeed," he murmured, making no promises.

But Frigga seemed to understand what he wasn't willing to say. "I look forward to the day we see her full potential."

"As do I," Loki murmured, hope blotting out some of his anger.

Maybe he could be worthy of Rose yet.

***  
***


	7. Emotions

Natasha woke to the sound of screaming. She had been deeply asleep, which she hadn't been for months. That was enough to coat her brain with cobwebs, and the screaming triggered memories of the Red Room even as there were sharp, stinging needle-like pains in her breasts. They felt huge, the skin stretched taut and hot, aching to have the pressure be relieved.

 _Oh._ Her breasts were heavy and full of milk, leaking a bit as Rose cried.

The bed was empty beside her, and Natasha frowned. Loki had gone to bed with her, reciting some kind of epic poem to help her fall asleep when she was too keyed up after an impromptu sparring session with Sam and Clint.

Pulling herself out of bed, she felt sore and creaky, as if she had gone a dozen rounds with her instructors at the Red Room, as if she would have a rainbow of bruises over her entire body if she took off her clothes. But no, it was simply exercise after inactivity and some deconditioning, exactly what she had been afraid of happening, and it irritated her to no end.

Loki was in the nursery, spitting curses as he wrestled with Rose. She wailed, arms and legs flailing, her face screwed up and red from the force of her cries. "Be still!" Loki shouted, clearly losing the last thread of his temper. "I'm changing your soiled diaper, you ungrateful infant!"

The prior irritation bloomed to full anger. Rose was a baby. She didn't ask to be born, didn't ask to be yelled at. She didn't understand the world, was frightened of it, and Loki's rage was terrifying her.

Pushing Loki out of the way, Natasha took over the diaper changing. "I thought you had an understanding," she hissed at him. Rose kicked and scratched at her with her sharp little nails, but Natasha ignored that.

"We did! I thought we did!" Loki gestured toward the wailing, flailing baby. "She broke it! She loathes me!"

"We went over this," Natasha spat as she wrestled on a clean diaper. She hissed in frustration as Rose wailed and urinated again, getting the diaper, changing table and Natasha's hands wet. "She doesn't hate you, she's a baby," Natasha snapped as she grabbed some wipes to try to clean up the mess.

Loki cast a cleaning spell over the area, likely the most useful one he cast for her in some time. "She likes _you,"_ he said sulkily.

Natasha managed not to snarl at him and upset Rose any further. Rose was crying so hard she was making alarming choking sounds, fists and feet pounding into the changing table pad. Once the new diaper was on, Natasha whipped off her nightshirt and brought Rose to a breast. She ignored Loki's stare; he had already seen her in considerably less than her underwear, which was an unflattering brief anyway.

"If she cries in the middle of the night, she's wet and hungry," Natasha told Loki through grit teeth. Rose was _hungry,_ tugging painfully at the nipple as she sucked hard to fill her empty belly. "It's no more and no less than that."

"When did you become such an expert?" Loki asked with a nasty tone.

Bastard. If she wasn't cradling their daughter to her chest, she would have kicked him in the teeth for that remark.

"I do my research," she hissed angrily. "I learn what I need to know, and I'm here to make sure that Rose has what she needs. What about you? You'd leave her lying on the street if she made too much noise and upset you!"

"Well, yes, but—" Loki began absently, glaring at the changing table. "No! Wait!" he cried once he realized what he was agreeing to. "I would never!"

"You tried to put her across the suite because she made too much noise."

"You were trying to sleep!"

"Bullshit! You didn't care about my comfort, only your own!"

"I'm not a good father, all right?" Loki screamed at her, hands clenched into fists. "I can't do what you do! I can't care!"

"Then get the fuck out of here!" Natasha snarled. Rose let go of her breast to start wailing in distress, and Natasha cradled her protectively to her chest. "If you can't be of use to us, get out. Just get out, don't bother coming back."

Loki stared at her, too furious to even speak. Finally, he turned on his heel and stalked out of the nursery, slamming the door shut behind him hard enough to make it rattle dangerously in the frame.

Natasha turned her back to the door and rocked Rose until she burped and hiccupped, fat tears rolling down her cheeks. She cooed and shushed the baby until she calmed enough to drink from her other breast when they settled into the rocking chair. "Sh... We're better off without him anyway. You have lots of other daddy figures that will be better for you anyway. Clint will teach you to shoot straight and hit hard. Steve will teach you how to be honest and when it's time to break the rules. Sam will teach you how to be gentle, how to talk to others without screwing it all up. Bruce and Tony will do science things with you, and Thor will teach you about honor." Natasha sniffled suddenly, and realized she was crying. "All I can teach you is how to break things. I can teach you about death and broken promises and how to destroy dreams. I can teach you how to kill, how to wear a mask and believe it's real."

She held Rose to her chest long after the baby fell asleep, tears drying on her cheeks. She was too afraid to move, too afraid to see the empty suite. If Loki was angry enough, he would do something stupid. His magic might be curtailed, but that didn't make him any less angry or clever. There was plenty of damage he could do without his magic, and it would all be laid at her feet, adding to the red in her ledger.

This was all her fault. Every time she thought she had a handle on things, when she could probably be a mother and Avenger both, something like this would happen and remind her that she couldn't.

Natasha was the Black Widow, trained to kill and maim and deceive. What made her think she could do this? Why had she thought she could actually nurture someone and be kind? Why did she think she could handle Loki and survive it?

Carefully, Natasha put Rose back into the crib and tucked her in. Then she fell to her knees and let loose the sobs.

***

Loki had meant to leave the suite and sulk. Or break something. Or break several somethings, truth be told. But there was a nagging itch along the back of his neck, the feeling that he was forgetting something. He had his hand on the doorknob and was about to open it when he heard Natasha's voice. It was a simple child's spell to amplify the sound, and he heard her soft, sad words. Something inside his chest broke at the sound of her wracking sobs, the sound of her strong façade collapsing around her.

He had done this to her. He had finally broken her, and it gave him no joy.

A spike of guilt stabbed through him, and he knew he had been unreasonable. Of course Rose didn't hate him. She was an infant, she couldn't make a judgment on how loathsome Loki could be. And he was loathsome indeed, picking at Natasha when she wasn't the enemy, was vulnerable, was the mother of his child. He hadn't been angry with her or Rose, he knew. He was angry with himself for not being good enough, not able to comfort his own child. And he didn't know how to comfort Natasha in any way but the physical, even if she would accept such a thing from him.

His hand was raised, poised to open the door. But at the same time, he was afraid of what he would find. Natasha would never hurt Rose, never, especially in a way to get back at Loki. She would rather gut him, he knew, but it was a personal nightmare to find Rose dead in her crib, blood splashed everywhere, her tiny face contorted in pain and fear. He never discussed his nightmares with Natasha, just as she never discussed hers with him, and weren't they just the pair? Two damaged people that couldn't trust, couldn't love, not really, and here they were, anchored to each other when they never meant to be.

He startled when Natasha pulled the door open, and they contemplated each other. She had a wary expression on her face, which gutted him all over again.

"I'm sorry," he rasped. "I'm sorry," he repeated after a moment. "I—I don't know how else to be, I can't be what you need, I'm not what she needs..."

"I can't do this right now," Natasha said tiredly.

He followed her into the bedroom, saw the exhausted slope of her shoulders and the halting step. She was _tired,_ wrung inside out by trying to train back into shape on the team and still care for Rose, her sleep sacrificed to help others.

She did everything for others, never asking for much in return, and never expected to be repaid for her sacrifices. Natasha thought it was her due, thought it necessary to pay for crimes not all of her own doing.

With everything she did, everything she was, she shamed him. Natasha was a better person than he could ever be.

"Natasha," he said, pain and desperation lacing his voice. She turned to face him tiredly, and he crashed to his knees in front of her.

"What is this?" she asked, somewhat suspiciously.

Loki knelt in front of Natasha, his face against her stomach. "Let me please you. I need nothing in return, but would do this one thing for you."

Natasha frowned at him, her fingertips resting lightly on his scalp. "Why?"

He thought of Frigga's words. _She has a difficult time accepting help from others and sees danger in every shadow._ They were too similar, and their connection was far too tenuous for her to believe in altruistic reasons.

"You tire easily still, and you care for our daughter tirelessly, at cost to yourself. Such sacrifice is noted, and I haven't been as helpful as I promised I would be. I would give you ease if you would allow it."

She hesitated for the briefest of moments, then nodded. Though she only needed to strip to the waist, Loki gently helped her remove all her clothing. Lying on her back on the bed, he was struck by how vulnerable she looked. Pretty and petite, bare skin and sinewy limbs. He knew the truth of her skill behind the appearance of frailty, knew that she was still far deadlier than the average mortal. Threaten their child, and nothing short of her own demise would stop her.

Putting his mouth to her, Loki licked her flesh before finding the tender nub. Initially there was no response, and her desires truly were as banked as she claimed. How disappointing for her, then. He could use trickery, of course, but that would cheat her of the attentions she deserved. Besides, this was actually rather enjoyable. Not as much as burying himself inside her, but he had liked hearing her fall to pieces at his touch. It was a measure of control he could exert, a gift to himself as well as to her.

Natasha spread her legs a little farther, but he grasped them and put them over his shoulders to get them out of his way. He lifted her hips with his hands then, altering the angle he could lick into her. That apparently did the trick, because then her breath caught in her throat. "There. That's... That's a good spot."

Smiling now, Loki set to work teasing and licking and gently sucking at her, occasionally sliding a finger into her to test how aroused she was. This was certainly far more effort than he used to have to put in, but the occasional moans and gasps were worth it. 

It was her turn to grasp the coverlet as she gasped and mewled. Natasha gently touched the back of his head a few times, fingers sliding through his hair, long and loose to tickle her skin. Loki was gratified to hear her breath fracture and feel her legs tremble on either side of his head. She tugged on his hair sharply as she moaned, so he kept at the same spot until finally she came. It wasn't as dramatic as her orgasms used to be, but he supposed that this response was dampened, too. A few more licks helped ease her down as her entire body relaxed. He sat back on his haunches afterward and let her legs fall from his shoulders. 

Propping herself up on her elbows, Natasha looked down at his satisfied grin. "You're not going to come up here with me?"

"Not necessary," he replied. The surprise in her eyes was gratifying. He leaned forward enough to press a kiss to her inner thigh. "This was for you, darling Natasha." Though he wanted to, he didn't laugh at her stunned expression. "Need more?" he asked, dragging his tongue provocatively along the skin.

He did laugh at the flush that rose along her cheeks. "I'm all right."

"You're used to going without, aren't you? Not used to nice things or people," Loki guessed. "You told me before that not everyone is out to get me. Do you believe that of your own circumstances?"

"Sometimes," she murmured. She seemed honest enough, and he allowed her to draw him up from his kneeling position.

"Everyone you trust is in this tower."

"Yes," she agreed.

He impulsively leaned forward and kissed her stomach. "So not everyone is out to get you, either. Not everyone wishes you harm."

"Meaning you don't."

"I don't. Once, long ago now, after you tricked me so thoroughly. But not now. Not for quite some time."

She ran her fingers through his hair, a faint smile on her face. He knew she liked his hair long and loose, wavy rather than slicked back and straight. "So it hasn't been hate for a long time," she murmured.

"I know better than to ask if you hate me," Loki said quietly. He already knew the answer anyway. He didn't need to hear it aloud.

"I didn't like how you manipulated Clint. How you took apart his mind. Still don't."

"Even if I apologized for that, I doubt either of you would believe me."

"Probably not," she agreed, nodding. Her fingers still trailed through his hair, and her posture didn't change at all.

"But perhaps you don't hate me," Loki continued, suddenly not able to help himself.

"Perhaps," she agreed. "I thought we went over this a while ago."

"We did." Loki wrapped his arms around her waist and kissed her abdomen again. He couldn't be forgiven, couldn't be absolved. Maybe she could understand how much he regretted his actions now, how much he wished he could change his past. The others never crossed his mind at all, never mattered to him before. Now they did, because they mattered to her, and he had done enough damage. "But I think perhaps you believe I lied. I don't lie about all things. Sometimes evasion is as good as a lie."

"So you can say you never lied, even as they go on believing it."

Loki nodded. "But I haven't done this with you, not since my return to this realm."

Natasha ran her fingers from his hair to his face. "I believe that."

He caught her hand and pressed it to his cheek. "I'm sorry. For whatever it's worth to you, I am sorry for all the harm I did, for the deaths I caused."

She nodded and let her eyes fall shut. "All right, then."

Not forgiveness, but that was more than he deserved anyway. He helped readjust her on the bed so she could sleep, and he curled around her body protectively.

Though she slept easily, Loki stayed awake with his regrets.

***

"Your cuffs are different."

Loki was startled, and looked up from the scroll he was translating to add to SHIELD databases. He had his own office in the Tower, which was full of scrolls, parchment, texts and artifacts Frigga had sent from Asgard. None of the Avengers disturbed the contents of the office, as if moving a book could upset the magic in them, so this was one of the few places he could expect to have peace and quiet.

Until now.

Turning to face Steve in the doorway, Loki frowned. Steve appeared to have just come in from a run or training session in the gym. He appeared to think better that way, or at least work through his personal demons. He didn't burden the others with them if he could help it, though Loki didn't know if they realized it.

"What are you talking about?"

"The markings on your cuffs. I pay attention to things like that. I might not know what they mean, but I do know that the patterns are different now. I saw it at breakfast when you were reaching for the orange juice."

So he went for a run to ponder it. Loki pulled back the sleeves of his undertunic, still frowning. The forest green fabric was soft and covered his wrists, without adornment on the hems. The overtunic and trousers he wore similarly were without the embroidery he was used to, but it allowed the Asgardian clothing to somewhat resemble Midgardian fashions. He might be forced to call Midgard home, but that didn't mean he planned to dress as they did all the time. Some of the styles were simply atrocious, and he was glad grunge was no longer popular.

Steve was right. Loki didn't even bother to look at the cuffs anymore, and he was sure Natasha didn't or she would have said something. "Huh."

"So what does it mean?"

"I have fewer restrictions on my magic." Loki's frown deepened. "It's not based on time served, I know that. I've been condemned here more than a year ago, and time restrictions would not have such an odd number."

"We weren't told about any restrictions."

"Neither was I," Loki admitted. "I assumed this was permanent."

"Should we contact Frigga?" Steve asked in concern. "I'm sure she'll visit Rose soon anyway, but..." Steve's voice trailed off at the sight of panic on Loki's face. "What? What is it, Loki?"

"What if I've done something else wrong? What if I'm removed from this realm, too?"

Blinking in surprise, Steve stared at Loki. "You have _fewer_ restrictions, you said. I don't see how that's a sign of further punishment."

That was logical, but panic was starting to override logic. "They're displeased with me, you idiot. I failed a test somehow. Having Rose scream at me, perhaps." Anger burned, white hot in his chest. "I _tried_ to follow the restrictions, I haven't killed anyone, not even the fools that deserve it! I did everything they asked of me!"

"Loki, calm down!" Steve snapped.

It was his commander's voice, and Loki stopped. He knew he was looking at the man helplessly, but rage and panic and _fear_ burned through him. How could he leave now? How would he function, knowing he had a child he could never see again?

"I can't—If they send me away, I can't see her again." Loki was hyperventilating. Later, he could curse himself as a fool for panicking in front of Steve. Though Steve was no longer the enemy, was he? They were allies of a sort. They worked together, and Steve had honor. Steve was like Thor in that way.

Norns, _Thor._ Was it his fault that Loki was being sent away?

"I'm sure it's just a misunderstanding," Steve was saying calmly. His voice was firm, and soothed a bit of Loki's panic. "Like you said, you didn't kill anyone. Didn't hurt anyone. I don't think they'd send you away for that."

"Misunderstanding?" Loki scoffed. "Magic is _precise._ It takes concentration and skill to have the spells work properly, especially spells of this magnitude!"

"So then someone _meant_ for you to eventually regain your magic," Steve reasoned. "You have fewer restrictions now, you said. That means you can do a wider variety of spells, right?" Loki looked at him blankly, not getting his point. "Frigga put those cuffs on you, so she meant for there to be a way for you to get your magic back. I doubt she would lock you away from your own daughter."

"Bah. Of course you would say such a thing. She likes you."

"Of course she does. But you're her son."

"I am not," Loki replied by reflex. But he had to pause and consider Steve's words carefully. The man had a point, and he was nowhere nearly as dim as he liked others to believe. He looked at Steve, who had a patient expression on his face. "You think she still considers me her son."

"She calls you that," Steve told him in no uncertain terms. "She doesn't strike me as the type to lie about that."

"Unlike me."

"God of lies," Steve pointed out blandly.

"Yes, well," Loki shrugged. "It served its purpose."

"So what other magic can you do?"

"It limited all forms before, but I have access to more of the _seidr_ and _galdr_ now. I do prefer the _seidr."_

"What's the difference?"

Loki grinned at him, a sly tilt to his lips that set most people on edge. "The _seidr_ is trickery of all sorts, a way to deceive the senses and confound minds. Altering the fabric of creation for a short time."

"I see why you like it," Steve said with a nod.

He didn't rise to the bait at all, which was rather frustrating, really. Loki would have liked to verbally spar with this one. Tony poked fun at him, Bruce generally had nothing to do with him and Clint made not-so-subtle digs at his character if he wasn't avoiding him. True, Loki didn't give any of them reason to like him, but it was better to go toe to toe and fight than be ignored so thoroughly. Perhaps that was why he fell into Natasha's clutches so easily. Of course, he rather enjoyed her tender mercies, so he couldn't exactly pretend to mourn her interest.

"I don't know why I have more leeway now. I wasn't given warning of such a thing, and I haven't had any contact with Asgard."

"Maybe prearranged conditions," Steve guessed, shrugging. It made sense, though Loki didn't want to praise a mortal.

"Perhaps I should consult with Frigga when she arrives. It may be nice to have discourse on something other than childcare."

"I'm sure she'll like that," Steve said, nodding slightly. He seemed to be getting ready to leave, and Loki wasn't entirely sure why Steve was being rather nice to him. He would have liked to speak with Steve more, but didn't know what to say to him or what topic might be a good one.

And then the moment passed, and Loki was left alone with his translation.

***

Frigga rocked and held Rose as Natasha looked on somewhat anxiously. Frigga was careful with the baby, who gurgled and smiled easily. Loki thought that perhaps Natasha was nervous because she didn't know what to do with herself. Prior to the birth, and even during the pregnancy, she trained, read, studied, and worked to keep herself in top shape and remain the best. There were still many times she felt out of her depth now, not sure what else she could do.

"The runes have changed," Loki said abruptly, shoving his wrists out for Frigga to see.

She looked them over, a faint smile on her face. "I see."

 _"What have they done to me?"_ Loki demanded, a thread of panic in his voice that he couldn't quite hide. Natasha looked at him in concern. "What does this mean?"

"It means that what has come to pass is exactly as I hoped," Frigga replied calmly, a serene smile on her face. The smile grew wider as Loki grew agitated. "Calm yourself. This is a very good thing, indeed."

"Why? Why is this a good thing?" Loki demanded. "What does this mean?"

Steve and Clint were passing by the common area, and broke off their conversation at the sound of Loki's agitated shout. He barely registered them, and shook his cuffed wrists at Frigga. "What is this?" he demanded again. He couldn't even suppress the panic in his voice as he took in her benevolent smile. He couldn't trust it any longer, as much as he wished he could. "What other torment have you planned for me?"

"Calm yourself," Frigga repeated. She rose gracefully, Rose still held to her chest, and dropped her hands onto the rune-inscribed cuffs. "The statutes of your tenure here change as you do. As you learn to appreciate life, show repentance..."

_"What?!"_

"I told you," Frigga said patiently. "You are of Midgard now. This is your home. You should appreciate it more."

Loki shook beneath her touch. "The more I accept this place, the fewer strictures I have?"

"If you must think of it that way," Frigga replied.

"You were sorry," Natasha said quietly, taking Rose from Frigga. Loki was somewhat mollified by how hasty her gesture was. Perhaps she didn't trust Frigga's intentions, either. "You told me you were sorry for the deaths you caused."

"Perhaps I was lying then," Loki snarled, snatching his hands away from Frigga. But he was still shaking, and he could see Steven and Clint staring at him. Damn them for seeing him at his weakest, for giving him a pitying look.

Loki turned away from them, away from Frigga. He was weak, disgustingly weak, and their pitying eyes burned.

Natasha held Rose to her chest and gave him an unreadable glance. "She needs to be changed. Your turn."

He gratefully took the out she gave him, and gathered his daughter from her. Looking down at Rose, something loosened in his chest, something he hadn't even realized was tight and painful. She stared up at him with wide eyes, then suddenly smiled as if she realized who he was.

"I'll take care of her," Loki said, cradling her in his arms delicately. He fixed Frigga with a hard stare. "I don't know what your game is, but I won't have it. I won't let you do anything to harm the family I have."

"I'm still your mother, Loki," Frigga said patiently. "You are my son, Natasha is now a daughter of the heart, that is my granddaughter." She gave him an arch look. "If you weren't so busy casting at shadows, you would realize what the runes mean now. You wouldn't accuse me of something terrible."

"You never do anything for no reason," Loki said, aware that he sounded churlish and ungrateful. "There's always an ulterior motive."

Frigga frowned at him. "Loki, everything I have done was for your best interest."

"What you _thought_ was my best interest," he said, voice shaking. "But it was all a series of lies. Artifice, so you could feel better about yourself."

"You see what you wish to," Frigga replied, pursing her lips unhappily. "You're so determined to think the worst of us, that we deliberately harmed you—"

"Everything I did, _everything_ was to try to earn Odin's regard," Loki spat, forgetting about the audience around him. He clutched Rose to his chest tightly, trying to hide her from Frigga. "But he refused me, wouldn't accept the very things _he_ had done. And then I was thrown into the Void, into oblivion, into _nothingness,_ all to prove a point that he was better than I, that I was merely a stolen relic, that I would _never_ be worthy, _never."_

"That's not how it happened," she said calmly, though her pulse leapt in her throat.

 _"You weren't there!"_ Loki raged, and Rose squirmed in his arms. "You promised, and right when I needed your counsel most, you weren't there!"

Frigga's lips quivered slightly. "You forget your own trickery, your treason."

"No," Loki snapped, glaring at her. "You made me take the scepter. You put me in his place, and I was King while he was in the Odinsleep. I simply finished what he started. _There was no treason!"_

"That was your opportunity to be better than he was!" Frigga snapped, anger flashing in her eyes. "And you were no better. You were just the same. Flawed and petty, small minded and fueled by nothing but anger. You were supposed to be _my_ son, better than those addled by warfare and death. It was to be Asgard's shining glory! But no, you brought in death and destruction!"

"And there it is," Loki said softly, voice breaking. "I was a pawn to you as well."

"Loki," Frigga began as he turned away. But he shouldered past Steve and Clint, who stared with large eyes and grim expressions. He would have to deal with the aftermath of this, but right now, all he wanted to do was hide. He had his daughter, and perhaps Natasha wouldn't hate him, but Rose was the only one he could think of right now. Her welfare had to be his priority.

He would go mad otherwise.

***

It was inevitable that the entire team would hear about the argument between Loki and Frigga. Thor of course denied Loki's version of events, leading him to scowl and stalk from the room without speaking further. Considering the fact that he usually never gave up an opportunity to needle Thor, that spoke volumes about how upset he was. Natasha gave him a few moments, then slipped out to check on Rose. Clint lofted an eyebrow in query, knowing full well that the monitor had been silent. She shook her head subtly as she left, and he inclined his head in acknowledgement.

Loki was in her suite, standing over Rose and watching her sleep. "Have you come to say something?" he asked bitterly.

"If I didn't say something when Frigga first arrived, why would I say something now?" she asked in an arch tone.

He didn't look at her. "It was hardly a noble conversation."

"No, it was not."

"So why are you here now?"

"Because you shouldn't be alone right now."

Now he looked at her, a vulnerable expression on his face. "Because I'm the monster."

"Because you were hurt, and it's a shitty thing to do to keep picking at the wound." Her voice was even, expression neutral. Natasha had the feeling that if she was overly emotional would be interpreted as pity, which would be unwanted. Presenting it as fact, however, would be palatable.

"And you care so much for my wellbeing," Loki said, looking back down at Rose. His shoulders were hunched, the classic posture of someone trying to make themselves a smaller target.

"Don't be that way" was the first thing that came to mind, but Natasha didn't say it. She instead approached slowly and ran her hand along his arm. He let out a shuddering breath, then after a moment, he rested his hand over hers. "Whatever harm you've done," she said softly, "that doesn't mean others get a free pass to do the same to you."

Loki looked up in surprise. "You think I don't deserve harm?"

Natasha shook her head. "I think you deserve a chance to make it right."

Snorting, Loki shook his head. "It can't be made right."

"You don't know until you try," Natasha said reasonably.

"As you do?" he asked, voice harsh but not quite snide.

She refused to rise to the bait. It was an obvious tactic, deflect and misdirect so that no one would see how closely she had struck a nerve. "I have my ledger. I have my choices. They are my own, and I can choose to bring balance to the world."

"How do I balance the thousands of deaths I caused on this world? Or the near annihilation of the Jotnar? Or any other wrong I have done?"

Natasha shrugged. "I didn't say it was easy. I only said it was your choice to do it." She squeezed his arm, and he gave her a faint smile. "I think, if you really try hard, you can figure out a way to make it right."

The smile on his face was almost sickly. "I loved her. Frigga, I mean. I don't know if I still do. She doesn't think she did anything wrong. How does _that_ get made right, Natasha? How do I put that back where it was?"

"You don't," Natasha replied gently. "You can't go back. You can only go forward. So it's up to you to decide what kind of relationship you want with your mother."

"She's not my—"

"She's your mother," Natasha interrupted flatly. "It wouldn't hurt so much if she wasn't. I know she's capable of great kindness. And maybe that's a trap. Maybe that kindness blinds her to the truth. I don't know her very well, not like you do. But I can see it in her. She's a mother, with all the failings that entails."

"Failings?"

"She will always love you, even if you don't. Even if you do horrible things, even if you do good things. She's the kind that will never judge you."

"But you judge me all the time."

"Of course. I'm not your mother."

Loki snorted. "Thank the Norns," he muttered. "But you would judge our daughter."

"I hold her to a higher standard," Natasha replied.

That seemed to give him pause. "Was Frigga not strict enough with me, then?"

"I think she wasn't. I think she didn't have the heart to be."

"So her failings became mine?" At Natasha's nod, Loki pursed his lips and appeared pensive. Natasha wondered if this was even a useful line of discussion, but then he squeezed her hand and brought it up to his lips for a kiss.

"She was good enough, though," Loki murmured.

"Of course she was. Someone like you just needed more than what she had."

He made a thoughtful sound and then pulled her into a tight embrace. "I'll be better than she was, then. For Rose's sake."

"You should do it for your own sake, too," Natasha reminded him.

"But she would be the measure. She would know if it's appropriate or not."

Natasha rolled her eyes. Children were malleable creatures, no internal moral compass. If anything, they could be compared to mercenaries when they were young. But to tell Loki this would likely call into question all the progress he just made.

So she tapped his chest gently. "In the meantime, run it by me first. Until Rose is walking and talking and more aware of the world around her, she can't be a good enough standard to work from."

Loki laughed, genuinely surprised and delighted. "Of course, of course." He grasped Natasha and whirled her around in a circle, then kissed her soundly on the lips. "You give me hope that perhaps all is not lost after all."

"Because it isn't." She patted his arm, feeling that this entire situation was surreal. Wasn't it just the other day he was spitting cruel words at her?

But his charming grin was on his face, and he looked at her as if she was the sun. He needed purpose. He needed someone and somewhere to belong.

She hadn't broached the subject with the others, but perhaps it was time to.

***  
****


	8. Threats

Lying on his back beside Rose in the front of the theater room, he projected images of the cosmos and patiently explained them all. She seemed to enjoy the glittering images, flailing her arms and legs, burbling happily. Sometimes he slipped into Allspeak, but he knew Natasha slipped into Russian or French at times. It was good for Rose's developing brain according to human research, so neither of them worked to fall out of the habit. She was too young to know what words were anyway. It was the cadence of language that mattered now, the emotion conveyed in it. So Loki showed her the best and brightest parts of the universe, not the darker places he'd been to.

"Isn't she a little young for astronomy lessons?" Clint asked from the doorway to the theater room.

Loki scowled up at the dazzling nebula above him and Rose. "It's more to make her feel the universe isn't a scary place."

"Oh. Is it?"

Clint's tone was one of curiosity, not derision. "It can be," Loki said quietly. "Quite a bit of it can be, actually."

"Huh." Clint entered the theater room and plunked down into one of the seats, legs sprawled in front of him and hands folded neatly on his stomach. "I've never been anywhere before SHIELD. And after I joined up, no real opportunity for stargazing or wondering about life out there."

That was possibly the most honest and revealing piece of information that Clint had willingly given him, so Loki didn't tell him that he knew that from his time controlling Clint via the Tesseract. He merely made a thoughtful sound, staring at the nebula and listening to Rose coo.

"I liked this place," Loki murmured, deciding to give Clint a piece of truth in return. "It is quiet there, peaceful. None deem it worthy of notice, as there is no sentient life within it, just scattered flora and small fauna on the planets with atmosphere. One in particular was my favorite. Thin, breathable air, sky tinged a teal color. I scattered seeds from Asgard once, to see if they would take root. Some did. The place was a riot of color and life when I returned. That was hundreds of your years ago. I wonder what it looks like now."

"Probably a jungle, then."

"Probably."

"Teal sky, huh? Weird."

"I liked it."

"I would guess your favorite color is green," Clint commented.

Loki chuckled. He did wear a lot of the color. "I suppose it's easy to tell, isn't it?"

"Yeah." Loki could hear the smile in Clint's voice. "You know, it's easy to fuck up as a parent." The words were harsh, almost abrupt. "Kids don't come with a manual. It's too easy to screw something up, and parents are just people. Flawed and awful sometimes, or fragile. Or broken."

There was a distance in Clint's voice that told Loki to tread carefully. This was Natasha's friend, one of Rose's honorary uncles. This was also a man that had cheerfully offered to slit his throat when he first arrived at Avengers Tower.

"Why do you say that?" Loki asked quietly.

"My Mom skipped out early. My Dad was an asshole abusive drunk. Brother wasn't much better," Clint told him, words clipped and precise. Not a sore point, but not something to be discussed in detail. "Not the same as yours."

"No," Loki replied slowly, wondering what his point was. "Not the same."

"Not that it's not hurtful to find out that you were part of a game between them," Clint continued, and Loki's heart seized. "Just different. I think it hurts worse if you idealize someone and then realize they're flawed just as much as the rest of us."

"You think I should forgive Frigga."

"I think you can do what you damn well please. She said you're over a thousand years old, Loki. You're a goddamn adult. You don't need her to tell you what to do. And you've got a kid now. You have to man up and be a father. Don't be a shitty one."

His tone was matter of fact, not lecturing, which Loki appreciated. "Man up," he mused, finding the phrasing funny.

"Yeah," Clint said, shrugging. "Basically, grow the fuck up."

"In that case, please refrain from using profanity around my daughter. I'd rather she not speak as though she was a gutter snipe."

He laughed in response, grinning up at the nebula. "Yeah. I can give that a try."

"My thanks." Loki paused, then changed the image above them into Asgard. "This is Asgard. This is where I grew up."

"Huh. Pretty," Clint replied as Rose burbled. He truly was a man of understatement sometimes. "Very... gold."

"Yes, it is. It's the shining city of the Nine Realms. Timeless. Unchanging." Loki could hear the emotion in his voice and was grateful for the darkness of the room.

"In that case, it's a good thing you're here," Clint replied easily.

"Why? The rule of Asgard—"

"Is bullshit," Clint interrupted with a snort. "If nothing changes, you don't grow. That's a fact. You need challenges. You need conflict. Thor says the best thing that happened to him was being sent here. It forced him to really look around himself and see _people,_ not just war and conquest. I think being here can do the same for you, if you let it."

"And if I don't?"

"Then you're just being willfully stupid."

Now it was Loki's turn to snort. "That is not a term ever used with me before."

"Yeah, well, I think we've already established that the people on Asgard don't know what the hell to do with you."

"Fair point," Loki replied. He had taken that as a point of pride, actually.

"So you really are in the right place, then," Clint said, shifting to push himself up to his feet. "Welcome to the freak show."

"What?"

"Carnivals used to have displays for oddities. What do you think we are? It's a tower full of the freaks nobody on earth knows what to do with. Might as well gather together."

It was said so matter of factly that Loki immediately rose to a sitting position to observe Clint in the golden glow of Asgard's image. "I thought you hated me."

"Oh, I can't stand you," Clint said easily. "You're an asshole that thinks you're better than the rest of us when you're not. You don't know nice even if it knocks you upside the head, and you're a self-serving bastard. Don't think I don't know how you made Natasha cry. I will _never_ forgive you for that or the Tesseract mind rape."

"Then how can you even speak with me?"

"Because you're Rose's father. I can work with people I don't like. I do it all the time." He gave Loki a chilling smile that looked even more eerie because of the shadows shifting across his face. "And if you hurt anyone else ever again, I will take it upon myself to personally teach you what it means to have your ass handed to you."

"You think you can best me?" Loki cried incredulously.

"Oh, I _know_ I can. And even if for some reason I can't? Everyone else in this tower will help me do it. _Everyone._ You can't afford to burn your last bridges."

While Loki was sure he was missing something in the metaphors, he was sure he understood the gist of it quite well. Clint gave him a curt nod, then stalked out, leaving him behind with Rose, still cooing innocently on the floor at the sight of Asgard. Loki shut his eyes and took a deep breath.

This was his home now. This was Rose's home. He caused this problem. He did this, and he would have to fix it on his own somehow.

***

While Natasha certainly put in her hours of training, Clint and Steve asked her to stay behind on the latest call for the Avengers. She compressed her lips unhappily and nearly glared at them. "You think I can't handle it now that I have a child," she hissed angrily.

"Tash," Clint said gently, "He brainwashes his victims. The SHIELD team that went in lost three people."

"Then why are you going in?" she accused.

"I'm not," Clint corrected. "SHIELD's calling me in to train noobs," he said. "They want me as far away from this guy as possible, too. I told them I'd cover the training, you had your own bolthole to go to."

Natasha visibly relaxed. "Oh. Oh. Thank you, Clint."

"Hey," Clint said softly, pulling her into a tight hug. "You of all people should know how I feel about you. You took care of yourself before you worked for SHIELD and even pregnant you could kick ass. But they don't know how this guy is doing it, if it's magic or auditory cues or pheromones or some shit even SHIELD hasn't tested yet. Everyone vulnerable to mind control is being sent into hiding to keep their minds safe."

She hugged him back tightly. "You stay safe, Clint. If you get mind controlled again, I _will_ beat it out of you."

Clint laughed easily. "That is how they got the other agents back, by the way. Though apparently they didn't get it right on the first try."

"Amateurs," she replied dryly with a smirk.

Loki was sent in with the other Avengers in case the mind control truly was magic as the man claimed. Dressed in full green, gold and black regalia, Loki stared intently at the man terrorizing the denizens of Wall Street. He appeared to be of average height, with nondescript clothing, brown hair, pale skin, and green eyes. He also appeared to be floating. However, Loki could see past it immediately; it was no illusion spell but a low grade hypnotism field. Those who were weak of will couldn't fight against it, and saw whatever this man wanted them to see, and obeyed him to the best of their ability. Loki could see the green skin and hair, red eyes and yellow pupils.

"You're a mutant," Loki declared. "There is nothing magical about you whatsoever." The decreased restrictions on his magic meant that he could reduce the man's hypnotic field and expose him for the thief he was. "Bow before _true_ mastery of the _seidr_ and see you have _nothing."_

It was easy to bind the man's skills, to leave him in handcuffs with the police, essentially stripped of his powers. The Avengers were left to tend to the weak minded fools that the man had manipulated and do crowd control.

But the man, who identified himself alternately as Mesmero or Vincent to various police inquiries, had one last trick up his sleeve. When Loki came close enough to gloat over the easy capture, Mesmero just smiled and whispered. Loki bent closer to hear his words, forgetting that he was well within what was left of his hypnotic power.

_"It went according to plan. I'll come after what you cherish soon enough."_

He held himself together until back at Avengers Tower. Agitated and fearful, he brusquely brushed off thanks and concern alike. Loki stormed into Natasha's suite, feeling crazed. It looked empty and was quiet. He couldn't find Natasha, but Rose was asleep in her crib. Natasha would never be negligent, something must have happened to her. the bastard got her. He got out of police custody and arrived ahead of Loki, knowing full well who he was thanks to his arrogance. Panic rose up, sharp and painful, the intensity threatening to choke him.

Then he noticed the bathroom door was open, the light on. The baby monitor wasn't in the charging cradle. Natasha had laid out clothes carefully on the bed.

Oh. _Oh._ Just a bath, nothing more dangerous than that.

Mesmero had tricked the trickster god himself.

He moved to the doorway of the bathroom and saw Natasha in a bubble bath, shaving her legs. She looked up at him and then put the razor aside with a frown. "Are you all right? Did something happen?"

"I..." he began, feeling foolish. Then he noticed a flash of green on her finger. "You're wearing my ring."

"It matches what I'm going to wear."

"You're wearing it now," he murmured, crashing to his knees beside the tub. "And you so rarely wear jewelry if you don't have to. Each piece is carefully chosen if you do."

"I suppose," she agreed softly.

"You care, don't you?" he asked, trailing his fingers along her knee.

"It's complicated," she hedged.

But even that not-answer was an answer, and Loki couldn't stop the grin that stretched across his face. His fingers slid down her thigh, beneath the bubbles and water. "I suppose so," he said, though his heart sang. It was silly and stupid, but she wanted him, she was tied to him, she didn't hate him, she might actually care for him even if she didn't always like him or what he did. Loki could live with that. He certainly had less than that before he had been sent to Midgard this time around.

He belonged here, with her and with his daughter. They were family, this was home, he had a place to belong.

"What?" she asked, looking at him askance.

"You care for me," he said, grinning at her. She rolled her eyes and let out a huff of breath as if annoyed, but he started laughing softly. He found the juncture of her thighs beneath the water and started to stroke her. "Perhaps you didn't plan on this, or wanted it, but you do care. That ring was my promise to you," he continued when her breath hitched a little. "I still keep it. I still mean it."

"Maybe you're reading more into this," she challenged, chin lifting a notch. But her chest heaved with the effort to maintain her breathing, and there was a flush rising in her cheeks. It was more than just the warm bath water.

"I would see you happy, Natasha," he murmured, leaning closer to her. "You would not appreciate promises to raze the skies in your name, and Rose would not understand it. When she does, I don't think she would like it, either. This is your home, and now it is mine as well. I don't want to destroy this world or even the people in it. Most of the time anyway," he added with a wry smile.

"Understandable," Natasha said with an answering smirk. Her breath caught as he slipped a finger into her, slowly exploring her. "Loki..."

"I would see you both safe and happy, however that would be so, even if someday it is not with me."

"Could you really be that selfless?" she asked, reaching up to touch his face.

"For you, I would."

Loki leaned in over the edge of the tub and kissed her, tongue sliding between her parted lips. She tightened her grasp on his arm, her other hand gripping the side of the tub. It didn't even occur to Loki that she could have taken her safety razor to slice his skin or pulled his head down into the tub to drown him. He only thought of the way she felt around his fingers, the way she kissed him back. It took time, but he worked her to orgasm and cradled her until she came down from it, unmindful of how wet or soapy his clothing got. He let go slowly, then moved to get up.

"Wait," Natasha said, reaching for him and licking her lips. "Take off your clothes and join me. The tub's big enough for two."

When he did just that, she pulled him down on top of her. Their mouths met in an intense kiss, and she reached between their bodies to guide his cock into her. Natasha didn't even let him pull back to ask if she was sure about this, and caressed his back as she wrapped her legs around his waist. Loki started slowly, letting her get accustomed to him again, then grinned wolfishly when she grasped his ass to urge him to move faster. "Natasha," he began, his voice little more than a moan.

"This feels good," she told him, gasping for breath. "Right there. Just keep hitting that spot right there..."

He absolutely cheated and used a thread of magic to stay erect. There was no other way he could stay hard when she tightened around his cock or moaned as she told him how good it felt. Grasping her tightly in his arms, Loki moved hard and fast, just as she wanted him to, just as he _needed_ to do. It felt like an eternity since he had last been inside her, and her mouth simply wasn't a good enough substitute for this. He came twice before she did, shuddering beneath him with her nails scoring lines down his back. That felt amazingly good, and he held onto her tightly, as if he could slide inside her skin and stay there. Natasha was flushed, chest heaving with each breath, and he didn't think she was faking it. Loki liked to think he knew her well enough by now to realize when she was lying or faking an emotion.

They didn't move until they heard a faint cry from the nursery. Loki sagged against her and blew out a frustrated breath. "I'll get her."

"I don't think I have any bottles prepared..."

"One of your friends purchased formula for emergencies," Loki sighed, withdrawing from her warmth. "You finish your bath, I'll take care of this." He dropped a kiss onto her forehead and pushed himself up from the tub.

Loki grinned in response to her quiet surprise and started to dry off. "She and I have an understanding, remember? I'll be fine."

And amazingly enough, he was. Oh, she still squirmed something awful while in his arms and he loathed changing her diapers. But Rose looked up at him and _smiled,_ her gummy grin stopping his heart as if she had taken it inside her chubby fist and squeezed tightly. He showered her face in kisses, and his daughter _laughed_ and _smiled_ at him, and Loki wanted to shout to the heavens in delight at such a change in her. _This is my daughter,_ he would say. _This is my child. Harm her at your peril!_

Natasha stood in the doorway when he was done feeding her the formula, burping her and singing softly in Allspeak. It was a slow ballad, a favorite composition he recalled from his boyhood. Rose was chewing on his shoulder and seemed to be content, even if she clearly still preferred Natasha. He saw her smile at the sight of him and their daughter, her body loose and relaxed.

"Come here," he said, gesturing for her to approach. "She still likes you more."

"I'm going to need to..." She trailed off and vaguely gestured at her chest. "Probably should have done that before the bath. Hot water increases the milk production."

"Then you'll be able to keep ahead of her needs a bit," Loki murmured.

Natasha had that smile on her face still. "You're good with her. I didn't think you would be," she admitted.

"I didn't think I would be either. Sometimes I don't think I am."

"Right now, you are."

Loki stroked her back, aware of his possessive feelings. "Right now, I feel good enough."

Now she grinned at him. "Sometimes, I think that's all we can ask for."

He nodded, holding on to Rose and this perfect moment of contentment.

***

Loki stared at his cuffs in his office. _His office._ It felt as if that made him something like a domesticated cat. A number of runic patterns didn't make sense in the context of the cuffs, and combed through the entire contents of the library he had access to, not finding anything. But Frigga knew all the _ørlögs_ of the _wyrd,_ and not all of them translated well to runic magic. She was one of the few practitioners still left alive that were versed in all of the _ørlögs,_ let alone able to manipulate the _wyrd_ and contain it.

What was she doing to him? What had she done to him already?

"Hey, Horns," Tony called from the doorway, taking in the wreckage of his office. He even sounded amused. Really? Was he to have no peace, no solitude?

"What do you want?" Loki snarled, not even looking toward Tony. Natasha and Rose were with Pepper, Jane, Darcy and Susan. It was a gaggle of females drooling over babies, and Loki wanted no part in that, even if they had thought it was a good idea. He had things to do. Runes to research. _What had Frigga done?_

"You never did ask what Bruce and I did with the genetic data we stole from SHILD."

"What? What does that have to do with anything?"

"We got some material from Thor and Frigga," Tony continued blithely, ignoring Loki's snarl. "Ran those to sequence. Now, we understand they're not related to you in a biological sense, but those are the only Asgardians we regularly have access to that would be invested enough to go along with our shenanigans."

"Speak sense, Stark," Loki snarled, whirling around and temporarily giving up searching for the runes that Frigga had used.

"We have some idea what an Asgardian DNA profile should look like now. If we use Thor and Frigga as templates, anyway. We have Natasha's DNA. We stole Rose's DNA. We even have _your_ DNA on file. Ran everything through various sequencers and did comparisons. Not that we had to run it to make sure you're the baby daddy, that much is pretty damn obvious even if the reasoning isn't—"

"Get to the point!"

Tony cleared his throat. "Well. Frigga said she could probably get her hands on some Jotun DNA to be sure, and I don't want to ask how she proposes to do that. But," he hastily said when Loki bared his teeth, "it appears that your own sequence has quite a few Asgardian markers in it. There's a fair number of genes we would think are specific to only Asgardians, actually, because they sure as hell don't show up in human DNA, but you've got 'em, Thor's got 'em, Frigga's got 'em, and Rose has got 'em. Don't know what they do yet, but hey, we'll figure it out if we have time enough."

Loki stared at Tony, letting the words wash over him. He had Asgardian genetics? But that was impossible. Wasn't it?

"There must be some mistake," Loki said faintly.

"Well, unless it's not specific to Asgardians after all, who knows. But we did check about a dozen times, and there was no cross contamination in any of the PCR runs, the samples were pure and clean in each well, and it absolutely positively ID's you as Rose's father, if you ever were in doubt—"

"Do not slander Natasha," Loki growled, baring his teeth at Tony.

Tony raised his hands in mock surrender. "Hey. I know what she said, what you _didn't_ say, by the way, and that there are secrets breeding even more damn secrets between you two. For all we knew, you could've been a cover story."

Raising himself to his full height, Loki glared at Tony. "What else do you have to say?"

Sighing, Tony shook his head. "Just figured you would want to know about that. Because then there might be something wonky with _you,_ not with Rose. We don't know about any of this, really."

Loki closed his eyes and let out a deep breath. "Frigga knows all of the _ørlögs,_ and she is one of the few that can manipulate the _wyrd_ and contain it."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning, I suspect this is her doing," Loki replied, letting his eyes snap open and clearly display his ire.

Now he really needed to find those runes she crafted onto his cuffs.

Tony didn't heed the warning in Loki's stance. He stepped into the room, and looked around thoughtfully. "Usually you keep it a lot neater, from what I've seen. This is a mess. Now, I know they say creative minds are—"

_"Get out!"_

He didn't respond to the implied threat in Loki's tone. "Listen here, Horns, you live in _my_ house because _I_ allow it and for some reason I actually like New York looking the way it does now, rather than whatever shithole you'd turn it into if you were let loose or under SHIELD watch. Whatever bullshit's got you upset, yelling at me won't solve a damn thing."

All right, he made sense. But Loki still wasn't pleased with him, didn't want anything to do with him. "You do not understand the enormity of what's here, or the damage that you would do if left with my instruments unchecked," Loki spat, managing not to push Tony out of the office.

Tony made a big show of holding out a finger to touch a scroll, a smirk on his lips.

"Do you like others invading your workshop?" Loki asked, voice sharp. "Do you enjoy them touching your tools? Altering your designs?" When Tony straightened and whipped his hands away, Loki knew that he understood. "Magic is a _craft,_ not some kind of toy. It's not a game. It's _precise,_ nuanced in every way. It is reshaping reality in a way your mind cannot comprehend."

"Seems like quantum mechanics to me," Tony replied, crossing his arms over his chest, and making an insouciant face. "And that, I do understand."

Loki thrust out his wrists to display the cuffs. "Then tell me what this is, Stark," he hissed, eyes flashing. "Tell me what your precious quantum mechanics can make of these markings, then. Tell me what your science says of magic."

Unsurprisingly, Tony observed the markings without touching the cuffs, bending over at the waist with his arms still crossed. He made little humming noises as he looked, not seemingly aware of it. Loki found it fascinating, as he himself sometimes had a similar response to a particularly intriguing puzzle. Loki was startled when Tony uncrossed his arms to grasp the cuffs and turn them.

"Huh. Dunno about the runes and whatnot, but I do see quite a bit of Greek in there, looks like mathematical formulae mixed in. I'd have to brush up on my ancient Greek, but it looks a lot like stress equations I'd use for pressure testing bots."

"What?" Loki asked dumbly, blinking at Tony. If this was Greek, no wonder he couldn't find the markings in his texts. "How would Frigga know that?"

"She knows logs, you said?" Tony asked, letting go of the cuffs and straightening. "That certainly looks like it. My guess, not knowing about what the runes say, is that they'd be unlocked in a logarithmic manner."

Scowling, Loki managed to keep from snatching his wrists back in an ungrateful manner, and nodded at Tony. "She knows great intricacies in the craft."

"And Jane likes to remind us that your magic is our advanced quantum mechanics, theoretical astrophysics and string theory all mixed together. I should talk to her about that on her next visit. Natasha said she likes telling stories and teaching." Tony actually brightened, as the higher sciences and mathematics discussion was enjoyable. Loki far preferred to call it magic and study it alone.

"To what end?" Loki asked with a frown. Something was nagging at him, as if he had forgotten something important.

"Why not?" Tony asked, as if he often pursued various complicated lines of inquiry for the thrill of it, as opposed to any real need of it.

"You can't practice magic."

"So? The quantum mechanics, though... That might increase output on the molecular generators we've been working, stabilize the Einstein-Rosen Bridge, even work out some of the kinks in our genetic models."

There, that was it. That was what Loki had forgotten to press Tony about. The man's mind was a warren of random things that somehow seemed to work the way he needed it to. "Because you don't see how I could possibly have Asgardian genes."

"Well, it's integrated seamlessly, so my guess is, they're either not Asgardian markers alone, or you have some Asgardian heritage after all." Tony shrugged as if that didn't matter, and to him it probably didn't. "You'd have to ask her."

Loki didn't wish to, and didn't wish to seem like an ingrate in front of Tony. Some of his reluctance must have shown, because Tony shrugged. "Or not. Maybe Thor could ask her for you, but then that means you'd have to talk to Thor. And really, you should talk to him _sometime._ You make the big guy all pouty."

That stung, though he didn't want Tony to know that. "I didn't ask you."

Tony actually grinned at him. "I know. But that's me being a decent human being for a change. I _am_ capable of that on occasion."

With no reply for him, Loki just watched Tony turn and leave. It did get the wheels in Loki's mind turning, though. He and Thor had been close once, and he did get lonely. Not that he would ever admit such a thing, of course.

But then, the truth never did care overmuch with what he thought about it.

***

Deciding that trying to manipulate Thor out in the open would appear malicious, Loki sat in Natasha's suite to brood. There had to be a way to nonchalantly steer the conversation to his adopted status and ask about his origins. Thor had to know something to belittle his viewpoint so much as a child. Surely Thor hadn't been that thoughtless growing up.

"Uh oh," Natasha began in a teasing note as she rocked Rose in her arms, settling her down to sleep. "You're thinking of something mean, aren't you?"

Startled, Loki merely shook his head. "I'm actually not."

She sat down next to him on the settee, bumping his shoulder gently. "So what's on your mind, then?"

Loki hesitated for a moment, concerned she would find it silly. Taking a deep breath, he decided to start with what Tony had told him and confide in her what his worries were in getting Thor to talk. Natasha usually had a handle on how people functioned, so she could possibly help him find an angle to broach the subject with Thor. He frowned at her pause. "What? What is it?"

"You don't need to manipulate Thor for that."

"Just asking the oaf will work?"

Natasha sighed. "Don't call him that. He genuinely cares for you. And he has no idea about your history. No, I meant that you don't have to ask Thor to ask Frigga."

"I won't ask her, Natasha. I can't trust her."

"She told me a story about your origins. I didn't think she was lying to me then, and it fits what Tony found."

Loki sat there stunned as Natasha told him what she had heard from Frigga nearly two months before. Then he dropped his gaze to Rose, nestled comfortably in Natasha's arms, sleeping soundly. "All this time..."

"I thought you'd ask her if you needed to know..."

"Not that," Loki interrupted with an irritated shake of his head. "I'm not upset with you, Natasha. Or even her. I never asked when I found out Odin stole me."

"If your birth parents are really a Jotun and an Asgardian, maybe they put you in his path to try to protect you."

That startled him. "What do you mean, _protect me?_ Exposing me to the elements? Even with Jotun heritage, that would kill an infant."

"But what if they had to hide you? Like we hide Rose? What if that was the only way to try to keep you safe? Where else could you be safe but in Odin's home?"

His mouth opened, then shut. "Oh," he said softly. _"Oh._ I had not considered that at all." His gaze slid away from her earnest ones. "I thought they considered me a monster. That I was to be destroyed."

"Of course you did," Natasha said with a sigh. Before he could say something in response, she shook her head. "Because they don't think to talk about anything in Asgard, and assume too many unspoken things are known. You have to be told things. You don't automatically know them."

"And you know this because you slide between assumptions. You hide behind them."

"Well, yes. It's what I do."

"And the compassion you once said I had to have for myself," Loki continued, gazing at her as she stood to put Rose in her crib. "You don't actually have any for yourself, do you? That's why you work so tirelessly. That's why you sacrifice. You don't believe you deserve forgiveness." He rose and followed her when she retreated to Rose's room. "It's why you targeted me. It's why you stay, even when I try your patience."

"You're not the easiest to get along with," she temporized, not looking at him.

That didn't even feel like a barb, and Loki was aware that it would have sent him into paroxysms of rage if Thor or Frigga said such a thing. "We are of the same kind, are we not? Able to forgive certain things in others, but never of ourselves." He touched her shoulder as she tucked in Rose. "We're lost, and never knew it."

Natasha lifted her head to look at him. "Maybe," she hedged with a sigh. "But I'm learning to rely on others for things. I'm really not trying to do it all myself."

"I noticed that," Loki said, running his fingers down her arm. "I'm... I'm trying to accept this as my home. And others here as allies. It's... Sometimes it works."

She caught his wrist in her hand, trapping his hand against her arm. "And these change as you do, Frigga said."

Loki stared at her intently. "Am I truly changing, Natasha?"

"Your innermost self? I don't think so," she said in a quiet tone. "But I think you're starting to realize who is an enemy and who isn't. I think you're starting to learn how to deal with what life throws at you." Her lips quirked into a smile. "I don't think anyone can really change who they are."

"So you were always this loyal." He saw her expression freeze for a scant second, only because he was watching her so intently. "You were always invested in the welfare of others. That training facility couldn't take that out of you."

Her breath came out slowly. "I suppose that's true."

He drew her into her bedroom and kissed her thoroughly. "I have come to care for that part of you," he said quietly. "I always had regard for your skill, for dedication and mastery. For the physical, of course," he added with a sardonic smile. "But I believe I have learned much by watching you."

Natasha still had the quirky smile on her face. "I'll take it as a compliment."

"It was one, indeed."

She responded to his kiss, even drawing him back to her bed. They undressed in silence, movements as coordinated as they were when this liaison started. She directed him to use lube to get her ready, and it was actually something Loki enjoyed doing. Slicked fingers inside her, he liked seeing her response to his touch. He liked knowing he had an effect on her, that he could make her lose control, that she wouldn't hold herself so tightly while he was with her. It was effort, but all worthwhile things required effort.

Natasha bucked against his hand when she came, stifling a cry with her fist to keep from crying out loud enough to wake their daughter. _Their daughter._ The words still thrilled him, still helped him feel as though he had a place here, that he belonged. Even if there was nothing finite between him and Natasha, even if she chose not to share her bed with him again, there would be this tie still. He realized it now.

She clambered up over him and slid down over his erect cock, riding him as hard and fast as she liked it. He spilled quickly, clearly unused to the sensation, and hadn't prepared with magic well enough in advance. That was disappointing, but Natasha merely laughed at him. It wasn't a mean laugh, he knew, as he had known her ribbing earlier had been a friendly jest and not a statement meant to unman him.

"Too eager?" she teased. "You'll have to do better next time."

Next time. Always a next time.

Oh yes, this was the place he belonged.

***

Natasha wasn't terribly surprised to find that the markings on Loki's cuffs had changed yet again. Or that various attempts to draw him in had not been rebuffed. Loki was fiercely prideful but also fiercely lonely. "Make him see us as his family," she had told them quietly, "and I'll bet that he'll be responsive. He _wants_ a family so badly, wants someone to see him as more than a freak. He's still dangerous and always will be. But if he sees us as his family, we can probably contain the violence and point it in a useful direction."

"Like you do?" Tony had asked curiously. It wasn't to belittle her or poke fun for a change, which she had appreciated.

"Yes," she had said simply.

The others had all been thoughtful about that, reaching out in little ways if they were comfortable doing so. Maybe they hadn't noticed a big change in his behavior, but she had. She noticed how he seemed more settled in his own skin, how much calmer he was with being needled, and that he didn't seem as angry as he used to be.

"Try your magic," she suggested as they sat on the rooftop together. It was a nice day out, one of the last that weathermen were predicting before fall really set in. "See how far you can go with it now."

Loki put on a dazzling display meant to impress her, and Natasha was indeed impressed by the show. But she also could see the simple joy he took in his gifts, the love he had for being looked up to. Frigga had been right to send him to Earth; no one on Asgard would look on him kindly for this, and they wouldn't look to him for advice the way humans would. He fit better here, though he still saw humans as collateral damage in the way of what he wanted. He could appreciate the ones he knew, which was at least a step in the right direction.

He sat down afterward, right at the edge of the building. "They scurry about like ants," he commented, seeing all of the people walking about down below in Midtown.

"You have about as much concern for them as if they were," Natasha commented.

Turning to face her, Loki frowned. "You disapprove. But you don't know them."

"Individually? No. There are eleven million people in Manhattan alone. I can't know all of them personally, and that would be terrible for my usual profession." She leaned back on her elbows and looked up into the clear sky, seeing the bright blue that Rose was looking at and gurgling happily about, a fist in her mouth. "But it doesn't matter what their individual stories are. They live, however it is they get through the day, and there are things that matter to them."

"So?"

"So, there are things they will never be able to understand. Things they don't see, don't know about, can't defend themselves against."

"You mean my magic."

"I mean anything," Natasha said, tilting her head down to look at him. "This is New York. It's a terrorist target and a mecca for multiple nations to visit. Even Asgardians come here," she said with a wry smile. "How many people would even know how to defuse a bomb? Defend themselves against a magic user?"

Loki snorted. "They kill each other over nothing. Bits of paper that are meant to mean something," he told her derisively.

"Yes, they can. People are fragile and petty and brutal. But they can also be capable of great things. Sometimes it's a question of protecting them against the greater horrors so they can figure out how to do it."

"You mean me as a horror," Loki replied, a faint accusing thread in his voice.

"Believe it or not, Loki, you've become one of their protectors."

He froze at her direct tone and wry smile. "What."

Now her smile broadened. "How many times have you saved people on this world since you arrived with those cuffs on?"

"It was under duress," he protested, appearing discomfited. "I came here to rule, I killed thousands of these worthless mortals—"

"And how many have you saved?" she interrupted.

The only thing that broke the silence was Rose's happy burbles. Even traffic sounds seemed to be muted, distant.

"I don't know," Loki said finally, turning away from her pitiless stare.

"Then maybe you should find out. Keep a tally."

"Your ledger," he sneered, not turning around to face her.

"Yes. Because it's about balance. Everything that is life is about life. Even the means to make your body function is called _homeostasis._ How to keep the creation and destruction within your own body in balance. Without that balance, entropy takes over, everything goes to rot and destruction."

"That's chaos."

Natasha snorted. "You thrive in that kind of atmosphere. That's where you could do the most good."

"Or the most damage," he snapped, turning back to face her with eyes blazing. "Don't you know? That's all I'm good for. I beguile and destroy. The darkness to Thor's light. I'm not a hero in anyone's story."

Not even his own, she knew. She only lofted an eyebrow. "I didn't say you didn't destroy. But you aren't some mindless beast. You can _choose_ what you destroy. You know how to direct the chaos. You can create balance out of it."

He could have lied and said "I don't know how," but he only shook his head. "Natasha—"

"There has to be a reason for you to stay," she said softly. "Not just for Rose, not just for me. You might grow tired of me, I might do something to lose the regard you have. Rose could grow up and be difficult. Teenagers always are, Susan tells me. She might not have magic. Or she might have magic you don't understand. If either of us makes you unhappy, what will you have here?"

Loki's jaw tightened, and she knew she struck a nerve for him. "I am not _good."_

"I'm not asking you to be. I've never asked you to be."

He let out a breath, nodding slightly to acknowledge it was true. "Then what?"

"Darkness and light are absolute concepts. Thor has said some pretty shitty things, and I'm sure he has asshole moments, too. No one exists in absolutes. You're capable of kind acts on occasion. You're not completely a creature of destruction."

"I don't want to be a caricature of goodness," Loki said finally, avoiding her gaze.

"Do you think that's what I am?"

"No, I don't suppose you are."

"I have to do some really vile things sometimes. I've killed, lied, seduced and stolen, all in the name of a greater good. I can only hope it really is good, but I don't know. What I do know is that for all the awful things I've done, I've helped to destroy the greater evils out there. I do the things others can't in order to maintain the overall balance. Life goes on, the horrible people gets what's coming to them... I'm sure the same will happen to me someday." She shrugged at Loki's incredulous stare. "I'm not going to lie to myself and say that my crimes don't count. Of course they do. But if I do them, someone else won't have to. Someone else gets to live."

"You think it's that simple?"

Her smile was heartbreakingly sad. "I know it isn't. But that's how I keep going. I didn't destroy the Red Room just to let my own conscience kill me."

"And you think I can do the same as you."

She nodded. "If you want to. If you feel this place could be a home for you."

He looked over at Rose, who had fallen asleep with her limbs splayed out. She still napped throughout most of the day, though when awake she was more alert and able to interact now. As far as Natasha knew, she was developing along the human track, so her lifespan likely wouldn't measure in the thousands of years. She would grow, someday ask all sorts of uncomfortable questions, and have to decide for herself if her parents were evil, monstrous people.

Natasha hoped she wouldn't think so.

"I'd like that," Loki said softly. "But it isn't so simple to begin again."

"Nothing worthwhile is easy," Natasha said quietly. "That's how you know it's worthwhile. The easy stuff isn't valued."

"I don't have to be friends with Thor, do I?" he asked mulishly.

She only laughed and laid on her back beside her daughter. He would have to figure that one out for himself.

The End


End file.
